An Accident in Time
by Cisselah
Summary: And so come that James Potter II showed up, dressed only in his boxers, in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic in the year 1980 only moments after a Death Eater attack.
1. Part I

~***An Accident in Time***~

**Written by: Cisselah**

_If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans._

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part I**

It was the 29th of July when James Potter II realized that he was screwed, and not in the way he usually wanted either. No... And he was not only screwed because on 29th of July he was stuck in a room with two grumpy Aurors that had definitely _not_ had their morning coffee, but also because it was 29th of July _1980_ and he was going to be late for a birthday party that wasn't supposed to happen for another fifty years or so.

It all started, like with so many other things concerning James Potter II, with a girl. It was a very nice looking girl, to her defense, with curly hair the color of wine and soft cream skin. But not even the unknown girl in the bed -what the hell was her name again?- could make him forget what he really, _really_ wanted to forget.

It wasn't _her_ in the bed.

"Did you hear about Samantha Goyle's wild night with Christian Zabini?" Please don't talk "Of course you did. You hear _everything_..." Giggles and soft fingers stroking his arm. He made a low noise that could have been _of course I did_ or _get the hell off me_. The girl translated it as Opinion Number 1 and continued her advances.

"Do you want to do something fun? I could show you something...-" He caught her hand, which had been slipping dangerously low, and threw it away as he sat up and opened his eyes. Walls painted a vibrant color of purple greeted his eyes and made his headache increase. How much had he drunk last night? He didn't know and he didn't want to know either. Slowly rising -and purposely ignoring the girl's protests- he stood up and started to search for his boxers.

It had been fun while it lasted -or at least as fun as any of this shit could be these days- but now he just wanted to go home and sleep off the hangover. The girl had been reasonably pretty and very much willing (Good with her tongue too) but she wasn't who he wanted her to be. The only reason he had followed her home last night had been because she had the same hair color as Selina.

Oh Morgana, he was pathetic.

"Look," he told the clingy girl without looking at her. "Last night was fun, but I'm not going to repeat it" Firm and direct, always the best way to deal with girls of this kind. Girls who wanted to make him breakfast and cuddle and _mean something_. God, he hated the mornings after.

"_What_ do you mean you _aren't_ going to repeat it?"

He found the boxers hidden half underneath the bed where he had kicked them off and slipped them on again. He still hadn't looked at her, because if he did he would find another face behind all that glamorous dark brown hair, that hair that turned deep red when the light shone on it, and he wasn't certain he could take that right now. So instead of facing the growing anger of the clingy girl, he started to search for his clothes among the mess on the floor. Did she ever clean?

"You're going to_ leave_? Just like that?!" She sounded really pissed off right now.

"Just like that" James confirmed and abandoned the search for the missing pants. If they weren't here, then where the hell were they? He hadn't started dancing on the tables again, had he? He tried to remember. Had he left them in the kitchen perhaps?

"Why?!" She really sounded distraught. "Why?!" she repeated.

Why? Why did he do anything he did? Because he was drunk. Because he was wild. Because he was James Potter and he always did the exact opposite of what he should have done. He shouldn't have drunk so much shots, he shouldn't have flirted with the bartender and he sure as hell shouldn't have follow her home to have sex with her because she had the same hair color as Selina.

But he did all those things and now he woke up the morning after with a hangover and another girl in the bed next to him.

Why? Because he was a coward. Because he couldn't -wouldn't- tell her that he was so insanely in love with her that some days he thought he would die. He was a coward because the moment he realized that he was in love with her, his best friend since first year, he had resorted with new intensity to drinking Firewhiskey and sleeping with girls.

But he couldn't tell the naked girl that. Merlin, he could barely tell himself that. So he settled for a half-truth.

"Because I really need an aspirin"

She cursed him.

Later on when explaining this, James would always say that he had no idea she could hide a wand when there was not a single piece of clothing on her body, he would say that the hangover made him slow and sluggish and that he was much too busy wondering where his pants had gone to see her curse coming, but the truth was that he felt like he deserved it. So when she decided to curse him, he let her.

Had he known what kind of shit it would cause he would simply have ducked. But as it was the curse hit him square in the chest and he had one single second -one single fucking second- to see the witch's triumphed smile before the yellow curse hit him in the chest and threw him backwards. He collided with the wardrobe and the doors broke open as he tumbled inside and hit a shelf _hard_. For a moment of so he was too disorientated to even try to understand what he was seeing.

When James had crashed inside the wardrobe he had ripped down one of the shelves and its contents had tumbled down over him. Placed in his lap were days old flowers, a dozen unopened letter, broken wineglass, candles and a signed photograph. The wine that had been inside the wineglass had spilled out over James's boxers and chest and some had even fallen into his messy hair. He didn't care about that, though, because he was much too busy staring at the photograph.

At first he thought it was his brother. But what would a photograph of Albus be doing in a bartender's wardrobe? Then he noticed the scar.

Flowers. Letters. Candles. His father on a photo.

It was hard to say whether the sickness was because of the curse or the fact that the girl he had slept with had an altar of his dad in her closet.

"James? James, darling, are you okay?"

_Not really, no..._ He wanted to say. _I think I'm about to be sick all over my dad's face._

Instead he said; "You really need a new hobby"

She was not amused.

"You fucking bastard!" She shrieked. "Harry Potter is my true love! My soulmate! Don't you dare mock me! Don't you dare mock our eternal love" She was so upset that she missed her target and blasted apart some clothes. Suddenly James had a bright pink dressing robe hanging over his head, obscuring the view of the potential threat. His Auror training kicked in and he tried to get rid of the blasted thing.

Said blasted thing tried to strangle him.

Things grew chaotic for a while when James tried to avoid being strangled by a pink robe and the crazy witch tried to strangle him with something silky that smelled of sweet perfume.

It was in time like this when James missed his best friend. Selina would have whipped out her wand, said a few curses and then they would have been on their way home to drink some potion to cure the hangover. But no, he just_ had_ to screw it all up. He just _had_ to fall in love with her... And now he needed to avoid her, so that he wouldn't do something terrible that would ruin their friendship forever.

The door opened and someone stepped in.

"Galen, I've got the device and... What the hell happened to the sacred shrine? Who is that?!" A high-pitched voice asked. The shrill tones cut harshly against James delicate hearing. He was grateful though, because the pink robe stopped trying to strangle him and the crazy, naked girl loosened the scarf from around his neck and turned towards the voice. James took a second to free himself from the Pink Death.

The girl in the doorway looked three times crazier than the naked one that had tried to kill him. She had hair that looked like it had been put inside a mixer and then spray painted neon green and bright orange. One of her eyes was brown and the other blue and her eyebrows were pointy things that looked so sharp you could cut yourself on them. The craziest thing about her was her dress. It was big and black and purple and scary. It looked like Grandma Weasley's dress turned evil. Her nails were pale blue all except one that was painted glittery pink.

She looked like Dracula versus Evil Witch from Hansel and Gretel with a nice touch of Queen "Off-with-his-head" Hearts.

James really wished he had cut back on the Firewhiskey.

"Is that _James Potter_?" The Evil Witch asked breathlessly. "Oh, Galen... You finally caught someone who looks like Harry!"

James really wished he hadn't drunk anything at all.

"You have the device? Give it to me!" The naked girl exclaimed, forgetting all about James. Normally naked girls didn't _not_ notice him, but he was kind of glad this one didn't.

The Evil Witch opened her hand and held out a weird device that looked like a clock turned monster under the bed. The naked girl gave a gasp of wonder and leaned forward to rip it out of her hand.

"You finally did it! Now we can go back in time to get Harry _before_ he turned slave under that redheaded bitch!"

James Potter was many things. He was an alcoholic. He was a manwhore. He was very cruel in various situations. He was a spoiled party boy. Yes... James Potter was many things...

He was also a Momma's boy.

"That's it!" He said and rose up to grab the naked girl and show her exactly what happened to people who called him a son of a bitch. Normally he didn't fight girls, but seeing as said girl had tried to strangle him with a scarf he figured it was pretty much okay. He didn't get the chance to do so though. In all his hurry to defend his mother's honor James had forgotten two very important things.

One. He was still disorientated from that spell.

Two. He was wrapped up in a pink robe that didn't like to let go.

These two very important things led to one very important thing.

James Potter II tripped and his course was redirected with more or less three and a half feet. Three and a half feet, you may think, is not very long. It was nearly not long enough, but nearly not long enough is still long enough. So those three and a half feet James Potter was redirected with was just long enough to alter the course of his fall so that when James started to wave his arms in a ridiculous attempt to stop his face from hastily meeting the ground, he succeeded to grab the Monster-Under-The-Bed-Device and crush it.

Two other very important things happened at the same moment as the creepy device broke.

One. The naked girl turned out to have very good reflexes and cursed him.

Two. James himself turned out to have very good reflexes -for once- and Disapparated.

And so come that James Potter II showed up, dressed only in his boxers, in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic in the year 1980 only moments after a Death Eater attack.

James came to the conclusion that it was the naked girl's fault.

That was also what he told the Aurors when they arrested him.

**I haven't had the time to read it through, but I hope that you like it. This will probably be a short story. I don't have the plot planned out, so we'll see where it goes. **

**If you see any spellings wrongs then please tell me.**

**Happy New Year 3**

**/AC**


	2. Part II

~***An Accident in Time***~

**Written by: Cisselah**

_I hate reality, but it's the best place to get a good steak._

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part II**

Harry James Potter was a very reasonable man, he was after all the Head of the Auror Office, but there was something about reporters that made him want to be very unreasonable. Especially when it came to the ones who wrote about his son.

"No comment" he told the Messenger of Satan and tried to look calm. It wasn't easy considering that the blasted woman kept trying to shove her tape recorder up his nose. He swatted it away again and again, but it kept coming back like some annoying fly.

"What about your son's wild adventures in the Muggle world? Any comments? Any thoughts?" he swatted away the blasted little box and tried to fasten his pace.

Normally Harry was very good at avoiding reporters. He had years of practicing at avoiding reporters. But this annoying reporter -who ironically came from The Quibbler- just wouldn't give up. She had been waiting for him in his office and when he had asked what she was doing there she had informed him that the nice redheaded man had let her in to talk with the famous savior of the Wizarding World.

The nice redheaded man was about to be brutally murdered by the savior of the Wizarding World.

Which was why Harry was on his way to his best friends office, annoying reporter in tow and mood set on KILL. He had tried dodging her, but the annoying woman kept clinging to his elbow like a little girl. He desperately wanted a glass of Firewhiskey, but Kingsley had forbidden him around alcohol at work ever since the dancing pineapple incident.

"No comment" he told the woman again made a sharp turn left to try to shake her loose. She hung to him stubbornly, like a squid. Perhaps he could throw her in the Black Lake and the Giant squid would fall in love with her, capturing her in its giant... things... and never letting her go. And thereby leaving Harry with a little well deserved space.

A pair of Hit Wizards greeted him as they passed and Harry could see the mirth in their eyes as they noticed the short woman on his right. This was clearly what Ron had in mind when he had let that bloody woman into his office. Annoy the Great Harry Potter. A great show for the whole family. Free tickets if you do it twice.

"What do you think about his continued string of women that visits his bedroom? Do you recognize yourself in his ways? Do you wish that you were young again?" How on earth had that woman become a reporter for _the Quibbler_? She was more annoying then Rita Sketcher.

"No comment" Luna's husband, Rolf, had probably hired her, Harry thought. He had probably seen himself in the ambitious, annoying little bug that wouldn't leave him alone and decided that he needed a free ticket for Annoying-Harry-Potter-Show.

A witch from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement gave him a pitying smile. Harry gave her a tight one in returned and turned a sharp left into the corridor where Ron's office laid. Just a few more feet, he told himself, and then you will be free from Ms Peckletoe or whatever her name was.

Just a few more feet. Almost there. Just stretch out your hand and...

"One last question" the annoying woman slipped in between Harry and the door and was looking up at him with a bright smile, her tape recorder less than a millimeter from his nose. "Do you think that how you raised your son has affected his abuse of alcohol and constant conquests? Do you think that you could have done anything better?"

Harry hated reporters.

"Listen, I admire your courage, Miss Pettyfer..."

"Pendleton"

"...Pringles" Harry corrected himself. "But it's not really your business, is it? Now, move out of my way, I have an important meeting to attend" without waiting for an answer Harry pushed her out of his way, opened the door to his soon-to-be-dead best friend, stepped inside and then slammed it shut in the reporter's face. He let out a sigh of relief and started to turn.

"You better pick out the flowers for you funeral, Ron, because..." he trailed off. "Albus, what are you doing here?"

Standing next to his best friend was his son, looking tired and hangover with bloodshot eyes and ruffled hair. It wasn't an uncommon sight to see the seventeen year old Albus Potter in the office of his father or one of his many uncles. What was uncommon was to see him in awake at ten thirty in the morning. Albus Potter, especially hangover Albus Potter, liked to sleep in. Which meant that Albus didn't wake up until at least twelve and was out of bed around twelve thirty on a normal day.

That was the first sign that something was wrong. The second sign was the expressions of the rooms occupants wore the moment Harry stepped inside.

Something was wrong, and Harry had a pretty good idea about what.

"James" his younger son stated and looked miserable.

I need a drink, Harry thought. He walked over towards the desk, pulling out the third drawer on the right to find the bottle of Ogden's finest Firewhiskey that Ron always hid there. He conjured a glass.

"What is it now?" he asked and carefully measured up a nice amount of the amber liquid.

"He kind of... Aren't you supposed to-...?" Albus wrinkled his forehead, clearly looking worried.

"No" Harry told him shortly, feeling very fed up with just about everything that decided to go wrong just because Harry Potter was on a walk nearby. "Continue...What has he done now? Set the Minister's hair on fire?" The amber liquid reached the nice amount of alcohol that Harry was planing on consuming and he set down the bottle on the desk, careful not to spill anything from the glass.

"Pour me a glass would you?" Ron hadn't spoken before now, and Harry had almost forgotten him in the determination to drink himself drunk before finding out what kind of trouble his oldest son had landed himself in now. Hearing Ron so causally ask him for a drink made him remember why he was in a bad mood to begin with.

Harry sat down his glass and with slow movements he picked up the bottle and gently put it back in the third drawer to the right.

"He's... Uhh..." Albus was clearly having trouble explaining things to his father. Harry gave him a levelheaded look, sat down on Ron's chair and took a mouthful of the Firewhiskey. It burned nicely on its way down.

Ron looked faintly annoyed.

"We went to a bar last night" Albus admitted after a moment of silence. Harry had to admit he wasn't surprised. Albus continued on, the words flowing from his mouth like a waterfall now that he had said the worse part. "I know that it was wrong, but James really wanted to go. There's this new bar in Knockturn Alley that sells the most amazing cocktails. We went there and we got drunk and Izak had to go to St Mungos because some random wizard decided that he needed a crocodile handbag. Anyway, James went home with some girl and now I can't find him anywhere. I tried to go to talk to her but she threw his jeans at me and told me that she was going to kill him for breaking her shine"

"Shine?" Harry asked, feeling his world spinning a little at the information that rushed out of Albus's mouth. He took another mouthful of Firewhiskey.

"That's what she said" his son confirmed. "She said something about soulmates too, but I was too busy getting James's pants off my face to listen"

"Have you tried his apartment?" It was too early for this shit, Harry decided and closed his eyes briefly.

"Yeah, and I looked checked with Selina and Grandma. I even checked with all his favorite bars. No James" Damn. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence that James Potter II staggered home in the middle of the night or early morning still drunk as hell. Mostly he went to Molly Weasley where he hid in the attic together with the moaning ghoul or he went to his best friend Selina, who just couldn't say no when it came to James Potter. If James wasn't at Selina or Grandma or any bar then he was most certainly in trouble.

Because James Potter had a routine. It went something like this: Drink. Flirt. Drink. Sex. Sleep. Dress. Escape. Drink. Go and crash somewhere. Drink. And then it happened all over again.

If James wasn't getting drunk or sleeping of the previous night of vices then he was most certainly in trouble. Harry hoped that he wasn't getting strangled by some pissed off girl that wanted more than a one-nightstand. It would be very hard to explain that to Ginny. Sadly the chances of that being the case were high.

"I was thinking that we should go and see this bird that James was with last night, see if she knows anything, you know" Ron told him and Harry nodded reluctantly. It sounded reasonable, and truth be told Harry didn't really know what to do. Putting down the half full glass of Firewhiskey Harry gave his friend a look that told him that the stunt he had pulled earlier this morning was still not forgiven, but that James came before the sweet taste of revenge and therefore Ron's gruesome death would be postpone on unknown time. Ron got the message and a lazy grin that didn't reach his eyes stretched out over his face.

They stood up and Harry gave his youngest son a critical look before sending him home to rest. The fireplace blazed emerald green as Albus Potter flooed away to get some much deserved sleep.

"Take your wand with you, this can get ugly" he told Ron, despite the fact that his friend already knew that. Dealing with James's old girls had become somewhat of a regular occurrence. It never ended pretty...

Harry opened the door and found himself facing an excited and somewhat embarrassed reporter. Her face was a cherry red color of excitement and her tape recorder was stuck out in front of her like a Holy Grail. Before Harry could reach for his wand the woman squeaked out something that sounded like "thank you for your time" and then turned around to run off as fast as she could.

Bugger. Harry could see the headlines already; _Harry Potter's wayward son, lost in action!_

He turned towards his best friend who was looking more than a little sheepish as he gave Harry an apologetic smile. If looks could kill then Hermione would have widowed and rich in about half a second.

"Sorry, mate" Ron said, still looking like the time he had tried to cook turkey and ended up blowing up Ginny's kitchen. "I didn't think she would be that clingy"

Harry hated reporters.

-w-

Surviving mornings with Auror James Potter all came down to one very important question;

"Have you had your morning coffee yet?"

If the answer to the question was yes, then you could do pretty much anything from insulting him to giving him the crappiest job in the office together with Auror Moody. If the answer to the question was no, then it was time to make a run for it.

Ever since his wife had gotten pregnant and started spending the evenings vomiting in their toilet Auror Potter had become increasingly grumpy. Some would even call him unreasonable. Especially on the mornings after the nights he had to spend stroking his wife's back as she cried and threw up and threw up and cried. On these mornings there was only one person in the whole department that dared to be anywhere remotely close to Auror Potter and that person usually didn't do it because of one reason.

Sirius Black was not a morning person either.

Before he got disowned, Sirius's mother had always taken it upon herself to order the house elf, a dreadful creature going by the fitting name Kreacher, to wake her son with a bucket of ice cold water. This process had been repeated every morning for the majority of Sirius life and stopped only when the poor boy was at school. Despite that there was no house elf with a bucket of ice cold water waiting, Sirius hatred of mornings had never faded.

So the Auror's at the office was faced with two alternatives. Either they could take their chances and try to talk to Auror Potter by themselves, or they could bribe his equally grumpy best friend into doing it.

This was the reason to why Sirius was on his way towards Auror Potter's office, one steaming cup of coffee in each hand, just for the sake of safety. Behind him trailed Auror Benjamin Fenwick, who was currently using Sirius as a human shield, just for the sake of safety.

"I wish you would grow a pair" Sirius muttered and sidestepped a flying paper plane to avoid getting nailed in the head by it. He couldn't quite work up the normal snarky tone, because the smell of fresh coffee was currently distracting him too much, but Benjy seemed to get the general idea.

"My birthday is in a month" he informed the grumpy Auror with what sounded like a wry smile. "I'd very much like to be alive then"

They turned a sharp left and nearly collided with an old woman who was levitating a smoking frog in the air. She screamed at them to watch it and Sirius responded that she could watch it herself. They continued down the hallway towards James's office.

There was a lot of people running around, screaming_ nice_ words and making _nice _gestures when they fell into each other or came too close. The last Death Eater attack had put them all on edge, and now they took it out on each other as they rushed around the Ministry trying to fix it all up. Sirius hadn't been there when it all happened, but he was just as pissed off as the others. It was an insult that they even dared to step inside the Ministry of Magic, and more so that they dared to go on a wild killing spree in the Atrium.

The whole thing made Sirius want to go on a wild killing spree himself.

They reached James's office without any farther incidents and Sirius pushed open the door ith his shoulder, pointedly ignoring the 'Do Not Enter' sign.

James's office was filled with papers. There was paper files spread over the desk, the floor and in some places even the ceiling (how he had gotten them stuck up there, Sirius had still no idea). The whole room was flooding with papers. There were papers everywhere, covering everything like a blanket of snow. Except that this blanket was paperwork, and James wasn't really in to that kind of stuff.

Once he had asked Sirius to help him fill in some late reports about some stolen crystal vials. It was about then when Sirius discovered that brotherhood only went so far.

In the middle of the room Auror James Potter himself sat, nearly drowning in papers. A pair of paper planes hovered over his right shoulder, waiting to be read. When they stepped inside the room he looked up and at the sight of the coffee he shined up.

"About time you got here" he told his best friend. "Crouch is killing me with all this shit"

Sirius grunted and handed the raven-haired wizard one of the cups. He chose one of the chairs and after he had dumped all the papers on the floor he sat down to nurse his own cup of coffee tenderly in his hands. Benjy leaned towards the door and watched them.

"How are you, mate? Is she any better?" Sirius asked the wizard. James didn't look up from his coffee but made a nearly inaudible noise that meant no. They waited in silence as James drank his cup of coffee. When he was done he sighed and leaned back casually in his seat.

"She's not due for another week, but at the rate she's going I just hope that the kid comes out soon. I don't think I'm going to be able to take another week of this"

This was the reason Sirius had decided to be a bachelor forever. He had nothing against marriage, seriously, but seeing how it worked out for his friend had put him off it for good. Women were demanding things that wanted everything they couldn't have and doing nothing but bickering about it. Even if he was able to find one of the rare ones that actually_ did_ something, things were going to go downhill the moment he knocked her up –which was inevitable because seriously, women just couldn't say no to him – and she became a crying hormonal wreck.

Besides, Lily cooked food for all of them, so he didn't really need a wife anyway.

"You should have thought about this before you decided to bang her on the kitchen table" No-body had ever accused Sirius of being anything but straightforward.

"Will you ever let that go?! I said I was sorry. Hell, I even bought you a new one" Benjy made a wired choking noise that made them both turn towards him. It soon turned into intense coughing and James frowned.

"Are you okay Benjy?" he asked, seemingly obvious to his follow Auror's muffled laughter. Perhaps those late nights with Lily really did make him dumber, Sirius mused.

"James, mate… I think he's laughing at you"

"Oh… That's not very nice, is it?"

Before Sirius had the chance to answer Benjy , who had recovered from his coughing fit, interrupted him loudly. "You guys know about the raid at the Atrium this morning, don't you?" he asked them.

They nodded curiously.

"Anyway, we picked up the most peculiar Death Eater ever. It's the weirdest freaking thing I've ever seen. Svenson sent me up here to get you. I swear, you're going to want to see this"

That was how James Potter made his biggest mistake ever when he agreed to follow Benjy Fenwick down to the interrogations to catch a glimpse of one of the most peculiar Death Eaters ever.

When they arrived to interrogation room 13 there was already a whispering crowd of people standing by the iron door. The interrogation rooms 1-40 had been installed back in 1785 when Gerhard the Giggly decided that they needed somewhere to put all the prisoners before they actually interrogated them. Later on the dusty old rooms had been converted for questioning to get quick answers from Death Eaters when no trial was needed. This meant that interrogation rooms 1-40 was pretty much always full.

It was the crowd outside room number 13 made James curious. Death Eaters were usually questioned by two Aurors (in some rare cases three) and generally everybody else left three of them alone until the Aurors declared the questioning a success and went off to have some coffee.

As they closed in on the crowd the whispering faded until there was only an uncomfortable silence left. Everybody was staring at him and James was starting to regret his decision to come down here.

"What are you all looking at?" Sirius snapped and James spotted a few smile.

"The prisoner" said one of the older Aurors with an easy grin. "Want to see him? If you stand next to the door you can hear what they're saying"

When Sirius and James had been young and innocent… Well, young at least, they had been infamous at Hogwarts for a lot of things. There had been their looks of course, James continued advances towards one Lily Evans, their stunning pranks and… Well, there had been a lot of things they had been infamous for. One of those things was that neither of them was ever able to back down from a challenge. Once, Sirius had drunk a galleon of raw egg and juice before singing a list of Christmas Carrols. Later on he had spent the whole night in the bathroom hugging the toilet.

So when the old Auror offered them the shy pleasure of eavesdropping on an ongoing interrogation James simply had to do it. Maybe it was the tone or maybe it was his own damned curiosity, but however the case was, James and Sirius ended up with their nose pressed against the thick glass window of room number 13.

The first thing that James noticed about Prisoner nr 13 was his boxers. They were bright blue with clouds and flying pigs. It was one of the strangest boxers James had ever seen and he quickly averted his eyes. It was hard not to look at them, because they were the only color that Prisoner nr 13 wore. Actually, it was the only thing that Prisoner nr 13 wore.

The second thing James noticed about Prisoner nr 13 was the looks. He had messy, jet-black hair and brown eyes. His face was the face James saw every time he looked in the mirror. At first glance he could have been a younger copy of James. At second glance the differences shined through. His hair was a little longer than James's and his eyes a little too brown. His nose was smaller and his jaw a littler sharper. And most importantly, he didn't wear glasses.

The third thing James noticed was the Auror that was leading the questioning.

"Is that Crouch?!" he asked incredulously. One of the Aurors snorted. She was a pretty woman with a thick scar running over half her face.

"Yeah, they took him down here after an hour or so when the Polyjuice didn't wear off. That kid is sure something, Crouch is furious. I think it's the underwear" Crouch was indeed furious, but whether it was depending on the underwear or not James had no idea. If the kid wasn't a Death Eater and hadn't been wearing his face James would have congratulated him.

He leaned forwards and listened.

"… take this one more time. What is your name?" Crouch looked like he wanted to set something on fire. The young man in the chair gave him a nonchalant look.

"Are you deaf? I've already told you" it was said nonchalantly, like an honest question, and somehow it made the head of the Auror Office even angrier.

"Tell me again" Crouch bit out, his voice so cold it was a miracle the kid didn't get a frostbite. He actually looked comfortable, like it was everyday business to be interrogated by the head of the Auror Office in only boxers.

"I don't have all day, you know. But sure..." he said like he was humoring an old man. "My name is James Potter. J-A-M-E-S-P-O-T-T-E-R. It's spelled with two T, just so you know"

James felt himself stop breathing. He stared at the James-imposter, but the kid was much too busy enjoying the sight of Crouch's red face to even glance at the door and the person behind it.

"Your real name, please" Crouch spat out, looking as if he wanted to beat it out of the James-imposter. But with the audience it was almost impossible for him to lay as much as a finger on the kid.

"I told you, it's James Potter. My father is the head of the Auror Office, ask him if you don't believe me" the James-imposter snapped, a little annoyed now.

This was a joke. It had to be a bad joke. There was no way there was some kid in that room that was pretending to be him. Why the hell would it be? It was all some kind of bad joke. It had to be. But in that case, why was the head of the Auror Office down here, playing along while the Ministry was in pieces after the raid in the Atrium?

"Don't lie to me" Crouch spat out coldly.

"I'm not lying! So go to your superiors, little man, and tell them to get the head of the Auror Office down here"

James turned to look at Sirius. His friend had an incredulously surprised look on his face that would have been funny had the situation not been so serious. As he looked, Sirius raised one eyebrow as if to say; _can you believe the nerve of this guy?_

"What were you doing in the Atrium in your underwear then?" the other Auror had jumped in. He was a tough-looking guy with very short, wiry grey hair. His name was John something, James recalled.

The James-imposter had the decency to look embarrassed.

"They've been at it for hours" the pretty woman with the scar said. "They even took down Carter here so that he could determine if the kid is some kind of alternative dimension traveler or something" she pointed at some guy in black robes that James hadn't thought a second about. The guy gave him a wave before turning back to peaking over James's shoulder. "No-body has the faintest clue to what the hell he is"

"...cursed me so I Apparated and the next thing I know I'm being arrested for something. How the hell am I supposed to answer to your questions when I'm not sure why the hell I'm even here in the first place!"

"You're here because I say so" Crouch had decided to put his large nose in the business again. He looked cold and collected, but James knew that it was only a facade. Underneath the mask the head of the Auror Office must be fuming. James felt a stab of irritation. Finally they were going somewhere and then Crouch just had to screw it all up. It was clear from the kid's face that he had decided he hated the man and wouldn't say anything important to Crouch. The other Auror whose name James couldn't remember clearly thought the same, because his face started to twitch suspiciously.

"You're here because we suspect you of being a Death Eater" he said.

The James-imposter burst out in laughter.

"Do you think this is funny? People are dying out there and you sit here laugh like it's all some kind of joke" the tough-looking Auror whose name James couldn't remember had clearly had enough. "Because I can assure you, nothing about this is funny"

"Dude," the kid said, still grinning wildly "Who put you up to this? Izak? Albus? It was Albus, wasn't it?"

They looked at him like he was You-Know-Who himself dressed up in a pink dress and sparkly tiara. Slowly the James-imposter's grin started to fade. He looked like he had been struck by lightning.

"What year is it?" he asked. _What the hell? _James thought and with a quick glance around he could see that the others though the same.

"I beg your pardon?" Crouch looked at him coldly.

"What year is it?" the kid repeated, looking like _he_ was the one seeing You-Know-Who in a pink dress and sparkly tiara.

"1980" the Auror whose name James couldn't remember said. The kid looked like he wanted to throw up.

Something was wrong and James wasn't sure what. Maybe it was the fact that a younger version of him was sitting in an interrogation room in his underwear or that said younger version of him was asking which year it was. Something about the kid's expression told him that 1980 wasn't the year he wanted it to be. But that was impossible, because...

"Why do you ask?" the question caught the kid off guard and he blinked a few times as if he needed to wake up.

"Because" said the kid and stared at Crouch like he was Jesus on a pike. "When I woke up this morning it was 2023, and now I'm going to be late for a party where the birthday boy hasn't even been born yet"

**Here you go, my friends. Happy New Year to all of you 3**

**This is, as you can imagine, not something I've read through, mainly because I don't have the time. I do hope that you like it though. Rating may change later on. XD**

**Welcome to 2013 3 If you read this then we can all celebrate because we have survived The End of The World!**

**/A.C**


	3. Part III

~***An Accident in Time***~

**Written by: Cisselah**

_I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer._

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part III**

Her name was Galen McTrawe and according to her neighbors she was nuts. Really nuts… Nuts as in sacrificing cats and talking to people that wasn't there. When James got back, Harry would have to have a very serious talk with him about picking girls.

"Bloody hell" Ron muttered and stared at door. Or, more specifically, the red sign that was hanging on the door that said; _Here you come, but no farther (unless you're Harri Potter)_

"Yeah" Harry said. "Everybody knows that Harry is spelled with Y, not I"

They knocked and waited. After a few minutes Ron knocked again, harder this time. A high-pitched voice called for them to wait one moment, please. They waited one moment and then another one. After ten minutes Ron knocked again, this time loud and impatient.

"Can you wait a sec, or what? Jesus, what's the matter with you?" the high-pitched voice screamed angrily.

"No, we can't bloody wait a sec. Open the bloody door now, or I'll arrest you!" Ron threatened and made a rude hand gesture that the girl on the other side of the door couldn't see. Through the door they could hear the sharp clicking sound of high heels against wooden floor. Ten seconds later the door swung open and Ron narrowly avoided getting nailed by the doorknob.

"What is it that is so important that…" the girl trailed off and stared at them with wide eyes. She was around 19, the same age as James, and the strangest looking girl Harry had ever seen. And that was saying a lot, considering he had seen many strange girls in his lifetime. Being famous kind of made that inevitable.

She had mismatched eyes –one blue and one brown- and messy orange and green hair that looked like it had been stuffed through a mixer. Her dress was black and daring and managed to look like something taken from a horror movie. She was the strangest girl Harry had ever seen, and she was looking at him with eyes that clearly screamed fan girl.

"I am Auror Harry Potter, and this is my partner Auror Ronald Weasley" she didn't stop staring and it was beginning to make Harry uncomfortable. "We would like to ask you a few questions, if it's okay?"

"You're Harry Potter" she breathed out in awe. From his side Ron made a grumbling noise that sounded like; _not again_.

"Yes…" he confirmed in a tone that said he'd rather not talk about it.

"No, you're Harry Potter!" Why was it that this always happened to him? Every bloody time he introduced himself the same bloody thing happened. _Every time. _Every single, fucking time…

"I am aware of that, yes" he told the strange girl and tried to sound formal and not annoyed. "But there are some questions my partner and I would like to ask you. Do you have a minute?"

The strange girl was still staring at him, and it was making Harry's skin crawl. There was something about the whole situation that was making his skin crawl. Why couldn't James just pick the normal ones? But no, he just had to inherit the Potter gene of Trouble with a big T. "_Galen_! Leave the device and get here! It's _Harry Potter_!"

Of course... It's Harry Potter... Come and see the giant freak that saved the world by killing another freak. Free tickets if you fall to your knees in awe.

"_What?!"_ Another voice squeaked from inside the flat. "Don't let him leave! You better not be joking, Carry, because if you are I'm going to_ shred _your Harry Potter poster"

Harry decided that he really needed a glass of Firewhiskey.

After a few seconds Galen McTrawe showed up in the doorway and Ron choked on his own spit.

Harry decided that he really needed a bottle of Firewhiskey.

Galen McTrawe was naked. Really naked. Naked like a baby at birth. She was standing in the doorway in only her socks, looking at Harry with hungry eyes that reminded him of Bellatrix Lestrange when she didn't get to do her normal quota of daily torture. "Harry…" she breathed out in awe and made a big show of leaning against the doorframe and puffing up her chest to show her naked breast. "You've come at last…"

This was the last time Harry dealt with any of James's old girls.

"Well," He said and cleared his throat nervously, stubbornly staring at a point far beyond her and pointedly ignoring her obvious attempts to redirect his gaze. "We have a few questions for you"

"A few… Questions…?" she licked her lips and tried to speak seductively, but mostly it just reminded Harry about the curse he would have to put James through when they found him. It wasn't that she wasn't pretty, because she was, it was just the fact that he was very much in love with his wife and even if he wasn't, a nineteen year old girl who'd just slept with his son wasn't exactly what he looked for in a partner. Especially not one who went around naked at 12 o'clock in the morning and tried to seduce old men just because they once happened to save the Wizarding World.

Usually Ron was the one who helped him ward of crazy fans, but Ron was still having trouble dealing with the terrible assassination attempt of the choking spit monster and couldn't really bust him out right now.

"Yes, about my son, James"

"Maybe you'd like to come in…" she clung to the doorframe and giggled while she stroked one hand up and down her leg.

Harry didn't really want to come in, but some of the neighbors where beginning to wonder what was happening. Dragging a still choking Ron with him –every time Galen McTrawe started to talk he started to choke- Harry stepped inside the flat and hurried towards the kitchen. In the corner of his eye he could see McTrawe gesture towards the girl in an annoyed manner that meant _get the hell out of here, I'm getting laid._

Harry tried very hard not to surrender to the choking spit monster.

The kitchen was a mess. Dirty plates and half full glasses piled up in the sink and the walls were stained with something that looked like spaghetti sauce. A round table stood in the corner and there were two chairs in the corner. On the table laid the battered fragments of something that could once had been a clock. Harry couldn't help but to notice that one of James's shoes were stuffed in the sink together with a half eaten portion of Thai food.

"Sit down" McTrawe offered them with a hungry smile and Ron –now recovered from the near death experience- and Harry both grabbed the chairs and sat down on the other end of the table. McTrawe tried to follow them to sit down in Harry's lap, but he crossed his legs and put his hands neatly over his crossed legs, covering them from her continued advances.

Disappointed she leaned against the wall. Then she realized that now Harry would be able to see all of her, and she shined up. "So…?" she asked with a sugary smile.

"Would you put something on?" the demand slipped out from his lips without a second thought. A second after he had said it Harry realized that it wounded rude, so couldn't help but to add; "Please"

McTrawe's lips trembled as she pouted. "Don't you think I'm pretty?" she asked him with a trembling voice. She wasn't going to cry, was she?

Harry had faced many things in his life. At age twelve he had stabbed a giant basilisk with a sword. At age fourteen he had dueled with one of the most skilled wizards of all time. At age thirteen he had faced a fully grown werewolf on full moon –_twice_. And he had never felt the terrified need to beg.

He felt it now. A panicked glance towards Ron revealed the same need evident on the redhead's face.

Harry Potter was not good with crying girls. He had never been and he would never be. So when the naked girl looked like she was about to burst out in loud, dramatic sobs, he did the only thing he could think about.

"Sure" Harry said and looked around desperately. "But I would be very,_ very_ grateful if you could put on a t-shirt or something"

McTrawe looked like she had come home one evening to find her flat filled with sweets. "Really?" she asked and smiled so largely Harry was afraid she might break. "Just wait here one moment and I'll be back. There's some butterbeer in the cooler in you want some" she disappeared behind the corner. As soon as she was gone Harry turned towards Ron with what he suspected was a slightly green color.

"Ginny is never going to hear about this" Ron looked a little green himself as he offered Harry his hand.

"Mate, nobody is ever going to hear about this" they shook hands, sealing the deal, and not a second later McTrawe showed up again, wearing a grey t-shirt that said; _Surprise your taste buds_!

For the first time since she showed up in the doorway wearing nothing but socks Harry got a good look at her. She wasn't James's usual kind of girl, not blond or heavily harassed by makeup. But then again, James hadn't really been picking up his usual kind of girl either. In fact, all of his old girls Harry had seen the last month had been vaguely familiar. Like Galen McTrawe… There was something about her hair that reminded him of…

Harry felt a starling realization run through his body. He blinked and stared at her hair. Dark brown and reddish, like wine. It looked exactly like… But no… He couldn't… He wouldn't… Would he?

"You had some questions…" the girl in front of him twisted a lock of hair suggestively around her finger. "Fire away… _Harry_…"

Harry cleared his throat. "My son -James- was here last night, wasn't he" he began, not really knowing what to say.

"Oh yes… We had a little… _fun_" there was that hungry gleam in McTrawe's eye again. "Do you want to have…_ fun_?"

Harry threw a pleading look in Ron's direction and quickly realized that his friend was _enjoying _himself. When the girl wasn't naked anymore and his own virtue was not in danger, Ron had started to relax and_ enjoy_ his best friend's squirming. He was even grinning at Harry, one of his eyebrows raised mockingly.

Seeing that there would be no help from that direction Harry turned back his gaze to McTrawe. He cleared his throat again and tried to smile pleasantly.

"No thank you" he said and tried to look professional. He suspected that it wasn't working out that well for him. "Do you know where he is right now?"

"James?" Harry nodded. She gave him a lustful smile that made Harry feel a little queasy.

"Oh, yes… He's in the past" she followed his every move with her eyes and Harry could practically feel her mentally stripping off all his clothes.

"I understand that, but do you know where he is _now_?"

"He's in the past, _Harry_" Harry really wished she would stop saying his name like that.

"_I understand that,_ _but do you know where he is now?" _Harry was feeling more and more impatient. She looked like she had given him a buffet dinner and he had demanded a fish sandwich instead.

_"He's in the past" _Harry was beginning to wish he was in the past too.

"Maybe you can tell me what he did after you had_ fun_?" she licked her lips and made a show of thinking.

"He Apparated, I think"

"You think?"

"Yes. I was a little busy trying to curse him. He broke my sacred alter, you see"

Harry did not see. Harry did not want to know and he did not want to ask. There were just some things that were too much for one man to handle. What he wanted to do right now was get the hell out of here while he still could. The girl didn't know anything and if he had to continue to put up with her advances he may have to go back in time to tell his younger self to get hit_ properly_ by that killing curse.

As fast as he could Harry excused himself and thanked very much for her time but they really had to leave right now and no, they could stay and have a drink.

They fled from the apartment as fast as they could. Ron and Harry arrived at the Ministry 12:37 and after deciding that there was no need to call an emergency meeting yet they went their separate ways.

"Potter" called a wizard as he passed on his way to his office. "Your niece was asking for you. You know, Granger's daughter. I sent her to your office"

Harry thanked him and made a face. He should have known that Albus wouldn't be able to keep it from Rose. Nobody could keep anything from Rose. That girl had a six-sense when it came to secrets. If Hermione hadn't been very specific about what would happen if he did, Harry would have signed her up for Auror training the moment she took one step outside Hogwarts Castle. As it was, he had gotten a few of his nephews and nieces, one rather drunk son and Malfoy Junior.

Malfoy Junior. Merlin's painted nipples, why did Albus have to sit down in that compartment in his first year on the Hogwarts Express? It was like history repeating itself but with an ironic twist. Christmas had become an increasingly awkward business since Malfoy Junior decided to spend it with his best friends. Not to mention the fights Rose and he came up with about…

Wait a minute… Wasn't it Malfoy who had told him last week that he needed to meet him? Wasn't it Malfoy who was scheduled to meet Harry in Harry's office _right now_? If Rose was in Harry's office, and Malfoy was in Harry's office, then Harry would soon be without any office at all.

Circe! It had taken him weeks to finish that report on leaking cauldrons!

Harry hurried his pace, images of what looked like a bombsite flashing through his mind. Bugger, bugger, bugger, shit! Merlin, he hoped that Malfoy had forgotten all about that meeting -just like he had- because he didn't fancy a repeat of last time the pair of them had decided to have a go at it. It had taken hours to get the pie off the ceiling…

_Fuck_! Why the hell did everybody have to stand in his way right now? What was this, the Official Annoy Harry Potter Day? If he didn't hurry up things would go wrong very, very fast. Malfoy and Rose were like a Slytherinand a Gryffindor in the same room. Actually, it _was_ a Slytherin and a Gryffindor in the same room. Anyway, there was bound to be collateral damage.

Expensive collateral damage…

At first sight the hallway seemed okay. No screaming wizards and no black scorch marks on the walls. Harry was pleasantly surprised to see that the door was untouched as well. Thank Morgana's knickers, that door had taken an eternity to replace after the Niffler disaster.

When he shuffled closer he could hear a loud moan coming from inside the office.

_Bloody hell, I hope they aren't killing each other in there. _Harry thought as he took the last steps in what must have been seen as full-blown panic. His hand hastily shooting toward his wand, Harry yanked the door open and froze.

Malfoy and Rose were not killing each other. They weren't even hurting each other. In fact, it looked like they had been enjoying themselves intensely before Harry interrupted them. The moan that Harry had heard from the hallway was quite obviously not a moan of pain or intense suffering.

The whole thing, Harry thought, was rather embarrassing.

"Uncle Harry!" Rose squeaked and immediately tried to cover herself up. She grabbed a folder of papers –Dung's latest escapade, Harry noted coldly- and hugged it tight to her chest. "What are you doing here?!"

"Well…" Harry said in the same kind of unfeeling fog he had entered after the first moment of shock. "This may come as news to you, but it's my office, actually. My desk too, but I suppose that I have to change it now"

There was something about the whole thing that made Harry unable to stop staring at the two of them that were tangled up rather passionately on his desk among the paperwork of last week. It was horribly fascinating, like a train wreck or a car crash. Or maybe it was just the fact that a pair of self-proclaimed arch nemeses was having sex on his desk twelve o'clock in the morning.

Maybe he had finally gone crazy, just like the Prophet had predicted.

A small part of his mind that was still functioning told him that he was going into chock. Finding ones niece in a compromising position together with ones son's best friend could have that effect.

"I came here to save you, but it seems as if you managed just fine" Harry informed coldly. "May I ask if this is what you wanted me to see, Mr. Malfoy? Because I can assure you that I really didn't need to, telling me would simply have been enough"

"It's not what it looks like" Rose said. Her cheeks and neck were bright red from either embarrassment or the exhausting work she had been doing a few minutes previously.

"Really? Have you inhaled a Lust Potion?" Harry asked her coldly.

Rose hesitated. "No" she said.

"Are you currently under the imperious curse?"

"No" she said, a little more quietly now. Her face seemed to beg for it to end, but Harry had had a tiring day and was fresh out of mercy.

"Are you two polyjuiced blokes and this is a very elaborate joke?"

"No" Rose whispered, her face a perfect picture of shame and guilt.

"Then I think this is exactly what this looks like. Now, I'm going to turn around and count to ten and when I turn back you better be dressed and off my desk" Harry turned around and counted to ten. When he turned back both Rose and Malfoy was dressed and off his desk. Harry made a noise of approval before he ventured towards his desk were he sank down in his chair, checking the papers and examining one of the overturned inkpots. Large black blubs were spread out over multiple sheets. It was impossible to vanish the blubs without vanishing the writing. Harry put them down again and looked up. He began to lean his elbows against the desk but thought better of it and settled for leaning menacing over the desk instead.

They sat down.

Malfoy looked unaffected by Harry obvious hostility. His face was a blank mask of nonchalance that reminded Harry of the time Rose had punched him in her fifth year. Rose on the other hand was a mess. Her eyes were red and she was trying to not cry. Her hair was a frizzy mess and robe was ripped on the middle, no doubt in a moment of mad passion.

They stared at each other for a while, all of them speechless. It was the first time that Harry had seen his niece unable to utter a single word and if he had not been in such a bad mood he would have been amazed. The silence continued awkwardly when none of them wanted to speak. Rose was the first one to crack.

"We didn't mean to do it Uncle Harry I'm so sorry I didn't think I don't know what's the matter with me and I'm so terribly sorry but please don't tell dad about this I'll do anything!" It all came out in a jumbled mess. She was so upset she seemed to have forgotten breathing.

Harry raised one eyebrow, feeling only a little bad about torturing her like this.

"How long?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" she seemed oddly nervous, twisting her hands in her lap.

"You know what I mean… How long?" There was a brief silence the size of Mount Everest.

"Seven months…" Rose whispered. Harry felt surprise run through his body. Seven whole months? He mentally counted down the days until he came to one starling realization. Another startling thought wrestled its way inside his brain.

"The New Years Eve Party" he said slowly, carefully..."I don't suppose that the knickers they found in the atrium was yours then?" Rose face told him everything he needed to know.

It was a little ironic, really. Ron had had the bad luck of making a joke about leaving Hermione's knickers there, so when the discovery of one pair of knickers were made the day after the wild party, everybody had assumed that it had been them. Almost right, but not quite. Apparently it had been their daughter.

"Please don't tell dad" the plea came out like a whisper. Harry massaged his temples.

This was so not his day.

"You're in luck" he told them. "I'm still pissed at Ron for letting a reporter into my office and then for laughing when… Never mind… I won't tell him about you, but you better do it yourself. Soon, because I think he would rather hear about it from you. I take it nobody else knows?"

They shook their heads. Harry made a dismissive gesture and Rose fled the room. Malfoy hesitated in his chair.

"Sir," he said, a frown evident on his pale face. "What about our meeting"

"I think we're done for now, Mr. Malfoy" Harry informed him, feeling really fed up with all the shit that destiny threw at him today. The time was for Merlin's sake not even 1 pm yet.

"But sir, there is something you have to see. It is very-…"

"I think I've seen enough for today, Mr. Malfoy" Harry interrupted coldly. "Please leave"

Malfoy stood up, his face clearly expressing what his mouth wouldn't. "As you wish, sir" he released one of the folders from underneath a pile of papers and put it down in front of Harry. "But look it through, if you will"

He left without looking back.

"Bloody bugger" Harry swore and dumped the folder in the trashcan. It went down with a silent thud.

His hopes of finding James went with it.

**There you go. I do hope that you'll review, because this is honestly becoming ridiculous. My internet is as wonky as ever, so don't count on me getting the next chapter up before next year (Yes, I am a Drama Queen. Live with it!)**

**My life goes on like normal, thank you for asking. If you see anything that is spelled wrong or a grammar error, please tell me so that I can make it better. If you feel like it, you can even try to butter me up. I promise, it would make my day…**

**This chapter is for the crazy people who dare to give a comment. So hah, in your face other people! **

**This is where you are supposed to laugh, but I can understand if you don't. It's really not my fault that they decided to serve me a that bottle of coke, they should have known it gives me a crazy sugar rush. **

**Love you all! Hugs and kisses from A.C**

**Happy New 2013 everybody!**


	4. Part IV

~***An Accident in Time***~

**Written by: Cisselah**

_Life is divided up into the horrible and the miserable. _

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part IV**

James Potter was shut in a small room the size of bathroom. In James Potter's room there was a bed and a broken chair. James Potter was allowed food three times a day and roughly five bathroom breaks –or so they had informed him. James Potter was not allowed to speak and James Potter was not allowed to insult the guards because James Potter was a fugitive in the Ministry's custody until Barty Crouch had said otherwise. This gave James Potter a lot of time to think.

Thinking was not good for James Potter's mental health.

As it was, James had come to three conclusions.

One: He was in 1980 and his mother was going to kill him when he got back.

Two: He was still very much an idiot to be lusting after his best friend.

Three: Barty Crouch did not have any sense of humor and deserved to be put in a cell in Azkaban together with three and a half hungry Dementors.

This, James decided, was going to become some kind of story parents told their children to keep them from picking up girls. It would probably go something like this:

_Don't sleep with strange girls you pick up at bar, children, because one of them may be an insane genius that has cracked the riddle of traveling back in time for years. Said insane genius may or may not keep an altar of your dad in the closet, and you may ruin said altar and then get sent back in time in the fight that occurs after you do so. You may or may not be wearing only your boxers and you may or may not get arrested by the Ministry for being a Death Eater. But that doesn't matter because you may be stuck in a room with no way of going back. Your father may be born the day after tomorrow and if you by some magical miracle –a man can hope after all- get home in one piece, your mother may or may not take care of that by killing you._

_If all these things occur, children, then either you're really unlucky or your name is James Potter. Either way, you're dead. So remember, don't sleep with strange chicks from some random bar and if you against all warnings do, then don't insult the head of the Auror Office's intelligence by calling him a headless chicken. It will only piss him off even more._

And that was how he was going to go down. Not as the awesome Quidditch player or the fearless Auror but the stupid klutz that got himself landed back in 1980 and arrested by some very gruff types that didn't like his jokes.

Freddy was going to have a field day with this shit.

Oh Circe, he missed his family. All of them, even Uncle Percy…

Okay, maybe not Uncle Percy, but everybody else. He missed the jokes and the sounds, the warmth and the feeling of never being alone. He even missed Grandma Weasley's hugs, and Merlin knows how many times he had pretended to be sick only to get out of them.

He really needed to stop thinking about it. It had been one day (technically it hadn't even been that, yet…) and he was already getting nostalgic. There was only one answer to why that was.,,

He was turning into a girl… All those chick flicks Selina and Maddy had forced him to watch must have had some permanent effect on his psyche. Why it was kicking in right now and not before James had no idea. Maybe it was set on a timer.

Well, there was one good thing that came out of this. It was only a matter of time before he grew boobs, and then he could finally amuse himself for some time.

James frowned.

_What the hell am I thinking?_ Was he really this bored? The answer was yes, he was really this bored.. There was no girls, no drinks, no cigarettes and no Selina. He couldn't even draw funny things on the wall because he had forgotten his wand at that crazy witch that had called his mother a bitch.

That rhymed! How funny…

He needed to get out of this place.

If he hadn't fallen in love with Selina, this would never have happened. He could be sitting in the couch at Maddy's place and chilling out with Maddy and Freddy and Selina then. Would they even notice he was gone? Freddy would, but the question was if he thought that James was out in a bar or flirting with some random bird somewhere. It wouldn't exactly surprise him if they thought that.

He wondered if Selina was jealous, but the thought of her not being it made his chest hurt so much that he gave up.

Why the hell had he fallen for her anyway? Couldn't it have been someone else? Someone easy?

No… It couldn't have, James realized and scowled at the wall. This was probably his punishment for something he had done while he was drunk. But somehow it didn't feel like it. It felt like his heart was expanding in chest every time he saw her. It felt like someone had set him on fire with a lighter, like he had liquid lightning stuffed underneath his skin. Every time she talked he hung onto her words, every time she laughed he died and was reborn and every time she touched him he wanted more.

Every day with her was a day in heaven and a day closer to hell. The things he thought about her should earn him a ticket to hell many times over. It was easier to just ignore her and hope it would all go away. That he would wake up one day and she wouldn't be the first thing on his mind. To pretend that she never had been.

He could remember the moment he realized he loved her like it was yesterday. It had been in the early morning and they had crashed at Freddy's place after a wild night in some bar he couldn't even remember the name of. Maddy and Freddy had been fighting about the bed –Maddy had gotten it in the end and Freddy had been forced out on the couch- and Selina had collapsed in an old armchair.

She had been beautiful, he remembered, like an angel. Perhaps it was the fact that he was still a little drunk from whatever shit he had been drinking this time, but there was something about her that captured the light in the room and made her outshine everybody else… There was something about the way her dark hair turned wine red in the morning light that made him want to run his hands through it.

She was beautiful and he had told her so. She had laughed at him and that had made him happy. "You're still drunk" she had said and her smile had been just a little bit sad. "Go to bed, James. I'll wake you up in a few hours"

And that had been it. _You're still drunk. Go to bed, James. I'll wake you up in a few hours. _And it had hit him like a hammer in the face. Suddenly she wasn't little Selina Wood anymore, but the most beautiful girl on the planet. He had wanted to scoop her up in his arms, carry her home to his own bed and lay her down and do unspeakable things. He had wanted her in his arms, underneath him, in his sheets, screaming his name and suddenly he had been hit with the realization that his feelings for her wasn't brotherly, not anymore, maybe they had never been.

_You're still drunk. _She had said and smiled. And he had been a goner.

As soon as the realization had hit him he had felt a burning shame. What was he doing, fantasizing about his best friend?

Well… Yes… And there wasn't exactly anything he could do about it. He felt dirty and disgusting. Selina was his best friend, his sister, his partner in crime. They had stolen apples from old McDougal, eaten ice cream in the old trees and set off dungbombs underneath old Muriel's chair. This was Selina. Selina who couldn't drink a drop of alcohol without throwing up and who had never been kissed because she was much too busy playing Quidditch or getting in silly fights over who got the last sausage.

In that moment everything that had been had been erased as if some crazy god had hit the Stop button. Click. Splat. Game over, mate.

Suddenly he couldn't be close to her without wanting to run his fingers underneath her shirt or through her hair. Suddenly the world was on fire and he was burning up and all he could think was; SelinaSelinaSelina.

Game over, mate. Just like that.

No matter how many girls he were with or how many bottles of alcohol he drank he couldn't forget her. She was on his mind constantly. What would Selina think? Selina wouldn't like this. Selina would have understood. Selina this, Selina that. SelinaSelinaSelinaSelinaSeli na…

This was the reason why thinking was bad for James's mental health. Because if he had to think any more about the gaping hole that was present in his chest he may have to hang himself and that would cause all sorts of trouble because James didn't really fancy hanging himself in his boxers.

Thinking sometimes made James Potter a little bit suicidal.

-w-

1980 was not a good year to be an Auror. Actually, no year was a good year to be an Auror, but 1980 was by far the worse one. There was a war going on and on one side they had the ones that hated the Aurors for _doing_ something about it, and on the other side were the ones that hated the Aurors for _not doing_ something. Either way, 1980 was not a good year to proudly declare yourself an Auror.

The only thing that was possibly worse than being an Auror was being a member of the Order of the Phoenix. If you happened to be both, then it was only a matter of time before someone decided to corner you in a dark alley.

Benjy Fenwick hated 1980.

Limping down the streets of the murkier part of London, Benjy sure was a sight. His robes were torn, his hair was a dark mess of dust and his left leg was grotesquely twisted beyond all recognition. He was a bloody mess, no pun intended, and he was quite sure that if anyone from the office saw him right now, they would either pity him or laugh.

Hastily casting a glance behind him to see if anyone was following, Benjy felt a moment of grief over his appearance. He had never been the model kind of handsome but a more mischievous, elfish kind. There had always been something boyish about Benjy that made him look younger then he really was and he liked to believe that his dimples and quick wit made up for his skinny frame and somewhat innocent appearance - the last thing was a big fat problem when he was out drinking. There were not many things more humiliating than the sexy bartender asking if he wanted a soda or a glass of milk. He had always thought about himself as funny and charming.

By the looks of it, he wasn't very charming right now.

Somewhere along the way Benjy had lost his wand –thank you Lestrange, thank you very much!- and his hands were cold and sticky of sweat. It was an Auror's nightmare; alone and unarmed while being chased by a group of dangerous fugitives that wanted to do unpleasant things with him because he busted a few of their friends.

Benjy really, really hated 1980.

He turned around a corner and limped on, ignoring the burning agony bursting from his mutilated leg at the slightest movement. There was no sign of pursuit and somehow that made Benjy even more worried. They should have been able to catch up without breaking a sweat but instead they let him run like some kind of twisted game of cat and mouse.

He was sweating now, feeling exhausted by the fighting and running. Sweat was dripping of his back and forehead, blinding him as he continued on.

_Just a little bit longer. _He thought and set course towards one of the bigger roads. _I'll make it… I have to make it… _

It wasn't a question of life and death anymore. Or well, it kind of was… But anyway, it wasn't just Benjy's life on the line anymore. He had to live so that he could tell them about the starling truth he had just learned. He had to tell Dumbledore before it was too late.

"Benjy! Benjy, darling, come out and play!" the sweet voice was so unsuspected that he almost tripped. He turned his head a little and glanced back.

Damn. It was that bitch again.

"You shouldn't be so persistent" he called back over his shoulder. "People may think that your getting desperate" The unsteady voice made the insult lose a little power, but Benjy was proud of himself anyway. He turned around the corner and stopped abruptly.

Benjy Fenwick was the luckiest bastard on the planet.

The muggle girl whom he had given a small heart attack was about nineteen and not very pretty. Not that it mattered anyway. She was surprisingly sober for a teenage girl walking home alone at night and her clothes were modest. A little disappointing really, because Benjy was pretty sure he was about to die.

"Listen" he told her and grabbed her shoulders to keep her from running away. She looked as panicked and Benjy wasn't sure if it depended on the urgency in his voice or the fact that a bloodied stranger had ambushed her and started shaking her shoulders. "If you want to live you need to do exactly as I say, okay? No questions, no arguments and no forsaken screams"

The girl looked like she wanted to cry. She also looked like the kind of girl that read a lot of books and spent a lot of time studying. A muggle version of a Ravenclaw.

If Benjy hadn't been so busy trying to stay alive, he would have been sorry to ruin her evening.

"What do you want with me? I don't have any money" she was about to cry. Great… Benjy could hear the Death Eaters closing in. He really didn't have the time for this shit.

"I'm about to be brutally murdered by a bunch of idiots, so please spare me the suffering and_ don't_ _cry_. I need you to give someone a message from me. Can you do that?" she nodded and a few tears leaked from her eyes. They were very pretty, her eyes, now that he thought about it. Light brown and warm with little flecks of melted gold in them that…

_Focus, Benjy. _

"Go to Trafalgar Square. Walk down Northumberland Avenue until you get to Great Scotland Yard. There's a red phone box there. Press 3 five times. Don't stop and don't talk to anyone when you're down there. Find James Potter and tell him that Benjy Fenwick sent you. Tell him that the kid was telling the truth and that he's not a Death Eater. Tell him that time is running out" He cast one look at the girl's tearstained face. "You got it?"

"Northumberland Avenue and Great Scotland Yard. Red phone box. Press the number 3 five times. Don't talk, don't stop. Tell James Potter that Benjy Fenwick sent me. The kid was telling the truth. Time is running out" she told him in a voice that revealed that she was about to become somewhat hysterical.

"And he's not a Death Eater" There wasn't much time left.

"And he's not a Death Eater" the girl confirmed with a frantic nod. That would have to do, Benjy realized and made a face.

"Good. Remember, don't talk to anyone but James Potter, and for Merlin's sake; Shut up!" Before she could protest he grabbed her and dumped her in one of the containers. She gave up a startled cry that was muffled by the trash. He sincerely hoped she would shut up.

Grabbing one of the bags of garbage –there wasn't much else useful things there- Benjy limped forward and patiently awaited what would probably be the last –and most pathetic- fight of his life. He didn't have to wait long. A few seconds later a grizzly face showed up from behind the corner. Benjy didn't waste any time and slammed the garbage bag in the werewolf's face. The werewolf swore and staggered back.

For some reason the whole thing was ridiculously funny.

It wasn't so funny when the other's caught up. Suddenly Benjy was on all four and breathing heavily as some unseen force was holding him down. Strangely, all he could think about was how dirty the ground was.

"That was fun, Fenwick. Why did you stop? Did you get a _dead leg_?" They laughed at him and Benjy felt the need to say something witty. He didn't, because it wouldn't help his cause the slightest.

There were four of them, not counting the werewolf, and Benjy recognized three of them. The one to the left was kind of a mystery, seeing as he didn't speak at all. The only reason Benjy recognized the next one was because he had arrested Rosier before. If he remembered correctly, Rosier had cursed one of the Senior Auror's so badly he had been in St. Mungos for a month and then escaped with a hidden portkey.

The next one was hard to miss as well. Severus Snape had not changed at all from their Hogwarts days and was still as greasy and nasty as always. He was looking at Benjy with cold, dark eyes that seemed like endless tunnels. A smirk was hanging out of the corner of his lips and his face was cruel underneath the mask.

Bellatrix Lestrange was also hard to miss since she hadn't bothered with a mask at all.

"Oh Benjy darling, how nice to bump into you this fine evening" she said with a mocking bow. The other's laughed and Benjy realized that he was screwed.

The werewolf, who had now recovered from the trash-attack, growled and took a step towards Benjy, murder in his eyes. Immediately Lestrange jabbed her wand under his chin. Her eyes were malicious in the faint light.

"Back of, you filthy half-breed. This one is mine" she snarled.

The werewolf backed off.

"That sounds vaguely dirty when you say it like that, Bella" The words slipped out from his mouth without him noticing.

"_Crucio_" Bellatrix Lestrange said casually.

The pain that ran through his body was like no other pain before. He was on fire cut to pieces electrified broken. Everything was red and black and pain and nothing but pain. His thoughts were jumbled a mess without an end please make it end.

He wished he was dead. He wished they would kill him. He wished he had his wand so that he could kill himself. He wished the pain would go away he would do anything just if the pain went away. He was burning on fire in pieces shattered. Somewhere in the distance someone was screaming and it was him. He didn't care because the pain was too much and he needed it to stop he needed it to…

Suddenly it went away and he was left gasping for air on the sidewalk. To his surprise there were tears in his eyes. He had never thought about how nice it was to _not_ be in pain. If he survived this he would treasure every day he went without pain.

They were laughing again.

"…screamed like pig!" Rosier mocked.

"Poor little baby cracked at first try. Do you want another one?" There was a glint in Lestrange eyes that told Benjy that she was enjoying this. Hurting him, making him scream.

"No… No, please…" he was begging and he hated himself for it. She ignored him and lifted her wand.

It could have been seconds or hours later when the pain subsided and the interrogation started. They wanted to know everything. Who was this James Potter double? Where had he come from? How had he sounded? Did Benjy think that he was telling the truth? He answered the questions with a mix of lies and truth.

The girl in the container was strangely quiet. Poor girl would probably have to go to therapy for decades after this.

"Do you want me to tell you the size of his boxers?" He tried to keep the snarky comments at a minimum, he really did. But there was something about Bellatrix Lestrange's face that made it impossible for Benjy to control himself. It just popped out of his mouth like a frog. The expressions on their faces almost made it worth the pain that followed.

After an eternity he lay on the cold stones and stared up at the night sky, still breathing hard from the spell.

"Do you think they have dogs in heaven?" he asked the woman that was standing over him. He couldn't exactly remember who she was, but he recalled that he hated her. "Otherwise you may have some problem getting past the gates. I wonder if they have silver or golden ones?"

"He's insane" The greasy haired git said. "You cracked him too much, Bella"

"Nonsense" the bitch said. "We'll just let him cool down a few hours and he'll be as good as new. He's still talking, isn't he?"

"We don't have an hour, the Aurors may come any minute"

"You should meet my friend Shampoo. Maybe she's too pretty for you" Benjy informed him and was rewarded by a nasty kick to the ribs.

"Don't be silly, Severus. They haven't gotten here yet, have they?"

The sky was a wonderful color of orange. Benjy decided that he liked orange, it reminded him of puppies and rainbows. The pixies that swammed in eyesight was pretty too, he decided, even if they happened to be hitting him in the head with umbrellas.

"We can't stay any longer. It's too much of a risk"

"If you're the dad and you're the mum than does this make me the baby?" He asked the bickering pair. They ignored him and Benjy decided that his feelings were hurt.

"We'll take him with us" the bitch declared.

One of the others disagreed. The bitch waved her wand. There was a small shuffle. Everybody agreed that they should take Benjy with them. Benjy decided that he wanted to have one of the funny-people-whose-names-he-couldn't-remember's masks.

The funny people whose names he couldn't remember decided that Benjy was becoming too annoying.

Benjy was stunned – no pun intended.

**This chapter is maybe a little crazy and maybe a little more serious, but I'm the Author of this story and I'm bored. The coke has been locked inside the cooler and I'm therefore a little less funny today. I needed to make some problems in the story, anyway, and poor Benjy Fenwick happened to be on my mind. **

**To all you crazy fans (yes, I'm aware there are like two people commenting this story); No, Benjy is not insane. Or maybe just a little. It'll pass soon anyway. I imagined that the insanity that comes with overexposure from the curse comes gradually and can fade if it isn't that serious.**

**On a brighter note, school starts soon, so I'll probably try to write as much as I can before I have to go back. I failed my test in physics and my computer has broken down once (A lot of my school work has thereby been lost) so I have a few things to fix. **

**And people, I'm vain, so please try to review a little, huh? I'm beginning to feel a little upset over here. I think I may start to cry. Or worse, sing…**

**I hope you like it, with love; A.C**

**P.S I am aware that my spelling sucks. Please tell me if you see anything that is wrong in the text. Thank you!**


	5. Part V

**~*An Accident in Time*~**

**Written by: Cisselah**

_Am I my brothers keeper? Yes. Interestingly, in my case, I share the honor with the Prospect Park Zoo. _

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part V**

Somehow people always found it best to call Albus first. Albus suspected that they thought that he wouldn't judge them and he wouldn't refuse helping them like Louis or James would have done. _Albus just don't do awful things, _they thought. _He's a pleasant Slytherin_, _that_ _Albus Potter, t_hey thought, _So I'll just go and mess up his life because he's too nice to turn me down. _

They were wrong.

Albus did judge people, he did do awful things to people and he was certainly not too nice to turn someone down. Albus was not perfect -far from it- but he was not stupid enough to show his flaws to the whole world. So when people said that Albus was a very nice Slytherin, Albus smiled nicely and thought; there is no such thing as a nice Slytherin.

Albus Potter was a Slytherin.

This meant that Albus had a fairly good idea about what was considered blackmail material. This also meant that Albus always made sure to have a way to record said blackmail material.

Freddy Weasley was not amused.

"Merlin Al, stop snapping pictures and get me out of these!" he rattled the handcuffs and made an annoyed grimace at his cousin. Albus ignored him with an easy grin. The bright flash blinded Freddy for a second and he blinked rapidly to get the spots to disappear. When he finally could see Albus gave him another easy grin that made Freddy want to hit him hard and then shove his camera down his throat together with a nasty curse.

Being handcuffed to a bed could do that to people.

"Just a minute" Albus said and took another picture. Freddy was furious.

In Albus's defense it must be said that it was excellent blackmail material. His cousin was handcuffed to his bed with a pair of fluffy, pink handcuffs that made his arms stretch high above his head. It looked like he was naked, but the sheets covered up all the important parts of his anatomy. A black cell phone lay where he had dropped it on the bed beside his pillow. In general, it looked like Freddy had gotten lucky and then not so lucky when the girl he took home had proved to be keen on attachment -literally speaking.

To Freddy's defense it must be said that Maddy had dared him to talk to the gothic chick in the corner. One thing had led to another and suddenly he had been drunk enough to bring her home. When he woke up the morning after he had been tied down with a hangover and a pair of fluffy handcuffs. He had been very hangover and not really himself as he had panicked and decided to call Albus (Luckily the phone had been on the nightstand).

He was regretting that decision now.

The only thing he could comfort himself with was that Selina couldn't drink a drop of alcohol without spending the night making out with the toilet seat and that Maddy hadn't hooked up with anybody and been violently sick when one of the Barbie doll wizards had decided to ask her out. He faintly remembered that it had come as a surprising relief when Selina had dragged her away so that they could have a threesome with some poor toilet in the Ladies room. Back then he had been proud that it hadn't been him.

Now he really wished it had been...

Some of his misery must have showed on his face because Albus lowered the camera and game him a serious look as he stuffed it inside his robes. He headed towards his tied up cousin.

It took them nearly an hour to get the blasted thing off. It was charmed to only open once the password was said and that made the thing a little hard to get off -Albus's blasting curse rebounded and nearly took his head off- but after half an hour of guessing Albus finally got it right.

"Kitty-cat? Really?" He asked incredulously as he stared at the handcuffs in his palms. Freddy gave up a relieved sigh and stood up. Albus quickly turned away from him and let out a string of curses. His redheaded cousin smirked.

"Not so smug now, are we?" He gave the his green-eyed cousin a satisfied look as he started to go through his wardrobe after some clothes. "You should think before insulting me, pretty-boy"

"Please don't call me that" Albus groaned dramatically. Freddy grinned as he threw on some underwear and a pair of worn-out jeans.

"Of course not... Pretty-boy"

"I don't really swing that way, Freddy, so save your remarks for Maddy. At least she'll appreciate it"

"Oh, Shut up, Albus!" Freddy said as he pulled out a green Quidditch shirt that said; _My broomstick is the best. _"You're just upset because you haven't gotten any and probably never will"

It was unfortunately not a lie. Albus had never been good with girls and even though some girls threw themselves at him, he just couldn't stand their puppy dog eyes and constant hunger for Harry Potter autographs. There was something very off turning about them asking him what kind of women his dad preferred. The man was over thirty and married with three kids and most of them knew that they wouldn't get him so they turned towards the next best thing.

People always told Albus how much he looked like his dad.

"Please" Albus lied -because he wasn't about to reveal he was a virgin to Freddy. His cousin would either get him drunk and set him up or blackmail him about it if he knew. "I get twice as many girls as you. Plus, I'm not madly in love with my best friend"

This insinuation was a common occurrence among the Potter-Weasley clan. Somehow they had gotten it inside their thick skulls that Madeleine Holmes and Freddy Weasley was secretly crushing on each other and if they were locked inside a cupboard all alone they would rip off their clothes and shag each other. So far the last part had proved to be incorrect all twenty-four times. And as far as Freddy knew, the only blokes that Maddy crushed on was blond idiots who couldn't figure out which end of the wand they should point in which direction.

"Well," Freddy told his cousin causally with mad, glittering eyes. "I thought I saw you check out Malfoy's ass last week"

Albus expression was one of utter disgust. As soon as the mental image of himself drooling over his best friend made its way into Albus mind he felt the sudden need to throw up. Scorpius was more like his brother than even James - although it didn't take much to be more like a brother than James- and the idea of them together felt very much like incest. To stop his overactive imagination Albus tried to think of random things like kittens and trolls.

It took him a while to remember that he had something important to tell his cousin.

"James is missing, do you know where he is?" Freddy sobered up immediately and stopped laughing. His expression was serious and concerned.

"What do you mean James is missing? Have you checked the bars?" he asked. Albus felt something cold settle inside him. If Freddy didn't know where he was, the chances were high that James was in trouble. Or well... more trouble than he usually was in. Despite his father's words, Albus hadn't been able to get any sleep so he had started to investigate James disappearance himself. Freddy had been his last shot...

"Didn't you know? I thought that dad would have checked with you by now" he said, trying in vain to ignore the pounding of his heart.

"I just woke up" Freddy's eyes were wide and he looked genuinely frightened. Albus wondered if his cousin would have been so worried if it had been him that had gone missing and not his brother. "Maybe he woke me up, checked if James was here and... and I fell asleep again when he'd hung up...?"

Albus gave his cousin a disbelieving look. "It's 3 pm, Freddy! What do you mean you just woke up?"

His cousin didn't bother to reply. He was already yanking on a pair of socks and shoes with lightning speed. As he grabbed his wand from underneath a pile of dirty Quidditch clothes Albus frowned.

"What are you doing?" He asked, his voice clearly saying that he though his cousin had finally gone insane.

"I'm getting dressed" Freddy grunted. "So that we can go and find James. We'll pick Maddy up on the way but we better not bother Selina, she get's angsty when James picks up girls, so I don't want to think about what she'll do when she figures he ran away with one to Vegas to get married" Freddy stopped suddenly and looked up hopefully at the raven-haired wizard. "Do you think that maybe...?"

"No..." Albus said unhappily. "He left his broom and all his money in his flat" There was nothing more to say about that. James Potter never traveled anywhere without his precious broom despite the fact that it was his brother who was the professional Quidditch player among the siblings. It was as unlikely as it sounded that wild party-boy James would become an Auror while nice, smart Albus became a Quidditch player. The only thing that was missing now was that Lucy became a dragon tamer and what wouldn't Albus pay to see his Uncle Percy's face?

Freddy looked even worse when he heard that. He took a moment to compose himself as he gave Albus an unsteady grin, trying in vain to sound nonchalant about the whole thing

"If he's gotten himself killed by one of those psycho girls, then I'm going to kill him" It was meant to come out as a joke, but instead the words sounded empty and cold like the tough truth of reality.

Freddy gave up on sounding cheery.

"Come on, let's go and pick up Maddy. We'll find James drunk somewhere in a ditch and then we'll kick his ass for scaring us" he said and headed towards the kitchen to get his cloak which laid sprawled out on the table

"What? No!" Albus slipped in front of Freddy and blocked the doorway. He looked upset, Freddy noted as irritation sneaked it's way across his face.

"Move out of my way, Albus... I thought that you of all people would want to find him"

"I do! It's just... we'll just be a nuisance for everybody else. Let the Auror's handle this, okay? They'll make a much better job than us" Somewhere, something deep inside of Albus protested at his words. Let the Auror's handle_ this_? _This_ was his brother and Albus wasn't about to let anybody else handle _this_. But Freddy really didn't need to know that Albus intended to send him back to sleep and then search for his brother on his own because one Potter was enough trouble already without Freddy 'The Catastrophe' Weasley.

"You don't really believe that, do you?" Freddy asked in a disgusted voice. "We're family, Albus, James is like my own brother. I'm not about to sit here while his away bleeding out in some ditch just because he couldn't keep his hands to himself!"

"What do you want us to do then? Go through dad's things and see if they have any clues?!" He immediately wished he hadn't said glimt in Freddy's eyes told him that it was exactly what they were going to do.

"No... No! H-how are we even going to do that?" Albus asked incredulously, giving up on the not-helping-James-idea because quite frankly he was being a hypocrite.

Freddy smirked and coldness once again settled inside Albus insides.

"Malfoy works with the Aurors, does he not?"

This was going to be worse than he thought...

-w-

Selina Wood was used to cleaning up people's messes. Or namely, James's messes.

It was a dirty job but as his best friend she was obligated to do it mainly because no-one else would. Maddy always offered to do it, but she was terrible at it and usually ended up making things worse than already was. Freddy on the other hand usually laughed at James's crazy adventures or sat with him in a holding cell in the Ministry making bad jokes about how they got there. James's family could of course clean it up, but then James would have been in some serious trouble and hell has no fury as a mad Ginny Potter. So when the morning came Selina had clean up whatever mess James had gotten in during the night.

There were a lot of messes...

Usually it involved a girl, which made Selina want to curse him or cry and sometimes both. She knew that it was stupid, because this was _James _and James didn't do anything but party and sleep around, but every morning she woke up, she hoped that it would be something else -_anything else-_ than what it usually was. Every morning that hope was crushed when James called her to fend off some crazy girl or some jealous boyfriend. That was the way it had been all their lives. James always called her to clean up his messes. Until suddenly one month ago he had abruptly stopped.

Now, every morning was spent hoping that he would call her instead of dreading that he did. Every morning that hope was crushed.

It wasn't that he stopped, because she saw him go off with girl more often now, but it was just that he didn't call her afterwards. And it wasn't just the phone calls. Suddenly he had stopped training with her and was avoiding her. There were no more friendly fights, no more sharing secrets and no more accidental touching when passing the salt. It was as if he had woken up one morning and decided that Selina was contagious curse that needed to be avoided at all times.

At first she was devastated. She tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen. She tried everything to get him to stop ignoring her, but wouldn't work. It seemed as if he had finally realized that she just wasn't good enough for James Potter. Suddenly she was alone in the world, empty and cold as her best friend went off to sleep with some stranger he had met at a bar.

Then she was angry. What the hell was he doing? Why wouldn't he talk to her? What had she done wrong? Nothing! Nothing, nothing, nothing and plain nothing! She wanted to beat some sense into that stupid brain of his. She ignored him like he ignored her -not that he noticed, because he was much busy avoid eye contact- and when their instructor paired them together in Auror training she made sure to hit him extra hard.

And then the panic set it. What if he didn't want to be her friend anymore? What if he hated her? What if this would continue _forever_? She didn't think that she handle that. Not now that she had noticed something terrible. He was picking up different kinds of girls now and he didn't look so happy when they clung to him as a second skin. He looked distracted, miserable… That could only mean one thing.

James Potter was in love.

Suddenly the world seemed too small for her. Question kept plaguing her all day and all night. Who was she? Was she someone Selina knew? Was she smart? Was she nice? Was she earth shattering beautiful, like Fiona Cho or Catherine Bones? She had to be, for James to notice her. When Selina looked into the mirror she saw all these small things that she hadn't seen before. How her eyes were too close, her hair too red, her skin too pale and her lips too small. She couldn't help but to compare herself to the fleeting imagination of how James's mystery girl must look like.

The panic inside her must have showed because Maddy began to ask her questions. How are you? Are you feeling well? Have you eaten enough? Are you sick? Are you _pregnant_? Selina answered her questions with a grimace and a smile that felt false and plastic over her lips. She wanted to tell Maddy everything. She wanted her feelings to spill over her lips in a steady flow of words. She wasn't used to keeping secrets from both Maddy or James, but there was one single little secret that she hadn't told anyone.

Selina Wood was painfully and horribly in love with James Potter, and had been so since the first time she met him.

It was a terrible secret, because it was no secret that James didn't do longtime relationships. James didn't do attachment and James didn't do love. James did casual sex and slutty girls and every time he flirted or made out or took a girl home, Selina felt like her there was a fat dwarf standing on her chest laughing at her in her face.

It was the worst thing in the world to be in love with James Potter, Selina had decided, because James Potter was a destructive force destined to ruin everything in his path.

Yesterday had been particularly bad. Really bad. Bad as in spending the whole night puking her guts up a toilet bad. Bad as in James following some sexy bartender with long legs home bad. Bad as in Freddy hooking up with some gothic chick and Maddy joining her by the toilet bad.

Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.

He hadn't called her this morning either. That knowledge hurt more than anything else. Or well, almost anything else. James following that slutty bitch home hadn't exactly been one of her favorite memories.

_I hope she gave you STD, _Selina thought viciously as she attacked her cereal with a spoon. The smiling face of Mickey Mouse stared up at her with unforgivable mirth. The Mickey Mouse spoon was Maddy's, as most things were in the apartment. They had shared for over a year but somehow everybody -including Selina herself- thought about it as Maddy's place. Maybe it was because of the ridiculous amount of things Maddy had stuffed in every corner of the house, or maybe it was because her things were the only things that visible.

The flat was consistent of a small bathroom, a kitchen, a living room and a bedroom that the girls shared. The bathroom was by far Maddy's favorite place. She had piles of body butter, shower gel, salts and bath bombs stuffed there. Sometimes she spent hours in the bathtub singing falsely or listening to low music.

The kitchen was Selina's favorite place. She could sit at the round table for hours, looking out the window at the busy streets bellow. On the other side of the road a little bakery peaked out between the subway and McDonald's. It was small and charming and they baked the best cupcakes Selina had ever tasted. Maddy, who was addicted to everything that had to do with sugar, always dragged her across the street to buy something sweet to eat.

"Come on Selina, you're small as a stick. It bugs me and lowers my self-esteem. So help me out by eating this beautiful cupcake and get fat with me!" she said when Selina protested. She weird that way, Maddy, always both insulting and complimenting people at the same time. The ever-present smile disarmed the situation before it even became a situation. She was a good friend to have, despite the strange habits that she had, like buying muggle stuff that was made for kids and then using it constantly in public and at home. Sometimes she would sit in the sofa in the morning with some bright pajamas on and eat ice cream while watching SpongeBob on the television she had insisted they would buy. Since magic reacted badly with electricity, they had to avoid magical objects in the living room -much to the boys' irritation.

One of the good things that came out of it was that Selina now knew the plot and title of every muggle tv-show for kids.

"I like it" Maddy had once told James when he had asked why exactly she was sitting and watching a yellow sponge play tennis with a starfish named Patrick. "And we have to have something to distract Freddy with. Children have very short attention spans" she had added with a wink and a mischievous smile.

This made sharing a room with her hard sometimes. Selina's half of the bedroom was filled with Quidditch posters, dirty clothes and prank items. Maddy half was a mess that Maddy herself liked to describe as "organized chaos". The wall behind her bed was filled with photos, funny images, cartoon figures and on one place a sign that said; Don't do drugs... Do me!

Maddy had stuck it in place with a permanent sticking charm, which was maybe not the best thing to do in a Muggle apartment. When Selina had pointed this out, Maddy had laughed and informed her that they would simply rip up the tapestry or if that didn't work, place a notice-me-not charm on it so that no muggles could see it but every wizard that came into the apartment would notice the magnificent sign.

Selina sometimes suspected that Maddy was a child in grown-up clothing.

Selina also suspected sometimes that she was Maddy's mother instead of her best friend.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud tapping on the window. She looked up to see a brow owl glare at her with night black eyes. It must have been sitting outside her kitchen window for quite some time, because the glass had three thin scratches where the angry owl had picked at it. Standing up sheepishly, Selina lifted her wand and opened the window to let the owl fly in. It settled on the round table, holding forward a copy of today's Prophet.

Selina dug her hand into her pockets and found not a single knut in there. She swore and the owl made an irritated noise before it bent down to start eating her cereal.

Only a few minutes before, Freddy and Albus had popped in, stealing Maddy away to plan the great Harry Potter's Birthday Party. Maddy was the only one who could find anything in the "organized chaos". Digging through a few shelves, Selina silently cursed Maddy, Freddy and Freddy's mother. Finally she found enough money to pay the owl inside the fridge, stuffed between a box of Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough Ice Cream and an empty packet of chicken nuggets.

When the brown owl had flown off, Selina dumped her half eaten bowl of cereal in the sink together with the dirty dishes that she would make Maddy wash later on. Her mood was quickly darkening like it had been doing every day since James decided that she didn't exist. She was, according to Freddy, becoming a dictator with mood swings.

Casting a quick look at today's paper, Selina reached for her wand to repair the scratches on the glass. She froze at the sight of the headlines.

**_Where is James Potter? _**They read.

That, Selina thought, was a very good question.

-w-

**So what do you think about the story so far? Do you like the characters? Personally, I love James and I love Albus and I love Scorpius and I love... Well, I love them all. **

**School starts today (First lesson now, actually. I'm sitting here writing while everybody else is doing Math) so I'm going to be busy for a while. I don't know when I'll be able to upload the next chapter or even write it. **

**Review would be a pleasant surprise, but I have officially given up all hope.**

**A.C**


	6. Part VI

~***An Accident in Time***~

**Written by: Cisselah**

_Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem._

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part VI**

Sitting locked inside a cell in the Ministry was not James's idea of fun. It had never been and would hopefully never be. It was horribly dark and horribly cold and most horribly of it all; boring... The first ten times he had spent inside a locked room had been somewhat fun (except for the time Aunt Hermione had decided to inform him that unprotected sex should be avoided at all costs) but then it had quickly gone from amusing to more boring than James's Uncle Percy.

The twenty-second time James had been locked inside a cell, he'd had enough. He and Freddy had thrown a wild party at Freddy's apartment that may or may not have included serving muggles magical drinks (Oh, come on! _They_ didn't complain about it!) and one of the off-duty Hit-wizards had decided to take a nice walk when he had seen the flying pig stomping off towards the sunset. Ten minutes later the party was done and Freddy and James was doomed to spend the entire night being interrogated by a nasty gorilla that faintly resembled a witch.

After two hours of interrogation they were locked inside the old cells in the basement. Maybe you can finally learn something, his father had grumbled as he locked the door and left to make sure his wife didn't murder their oldest son. An hour later both James and Freddy decided that it was enough.

That was the first time James had broken out the cells in the basement.

It had been easy really, because nobody thought about anything but magic. There were wards for about everything from simple spells to apparition and potions. There was ways to make sure the prisoner couldn't use magic or potions or secret magical tattoos. But in the end, nobody thought of the muggle way. Nobody had been as original and creative and wonderfully stupid as Freddy and James to break out of the cells in the basement _the_ _muggle way_...

It had taken them thirty minutes, two broken nails and a cracked pencil but in the end Freddy and James were free and the Aurors mightily impressed. Of course they had gotten grounded for like forever, but James figured it was worth it. It became a game of sorts; James and Freddy would be locked up in a cell and try to escape, the Aurors would try to stop them, his father would be both impressed and furious and his mother would try to kill him.

In the end, Freddy and James had thought up over a hundred plans to escape the cells of the Ministry and the Aurors had thought up two-hundred ways to stop them. It became impossible to escape, because the Aurors knew how Freddy and James worked and they kept them on a tighter leash than a werewolf in a well. So when James once again had been put inside that stupid cell in the basement he hadn't realized it until then the process of thinking had kicked in.

This was 1980. This was 1980 and the Aurors hadn't lived through James and Freddy's mischievous escapades. This was 1980 and the first time James sat in a holding cell in the Ministry. This was 1980 and the two-hundred ways to prevent James's insane plans hadn't been invented yet.

Those poor bastards would have no idea what hit them.

The James-bomb had been reactivated and the clock was ticking -rather loudly too- but since the poor bastards that guarded him had no idea who they were dealing with they simply thought the clock was a countdown to Dounut-Time.

James took a strange sense of pleasure out of knowing something they didn't.

"How are you doing there, Johnny? Munching on that grilled cheese sandwich again? Didn't I tell you that calories are bad for men of your type? You could have a heart aneurism or a brain attack" James told the walls in a loud voice, knowing it would piss the guards at the door off.

"My name... is _not_... Johnny" One of the guards -whom James had decided to call Fatty- grunted. His partner -Sticky- snorted.

"Your name's John, John. It's the same thing" Sticky said, sounding as if he believed that Fatty sure was an idiot.

"No it isn't!" Fatty protested

"Yes it is" Sticky said in a mocking baby voice.

"No! it isn't!"

"Yes! It is!"

"Am I the only one here who realizes that it's called heart attack and brain aneurism and not heart aneurism and brain attack. Although, you do kind of look like the kind of guy who could get a brain attack. I wonder what happens then. Do you think your head will start to smoke? Do you think that it will explode? _Please_, tell me it explodes!" James was talking. The guards were listening. The clock was counting down in very loud_ dings_.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Fatty asked incredulously. "Can you even see me from in there?"

Truth was, James couldn't. He was just messing around, trying to rile them up a bit just for fun. The glass window was too small to really see anything and James wasn't really the type to stick his nose against the glass just to embarrass himself. No, James needed to win something to do anything _that_ embarrassing, and he was pretty much sure that seeing Fatty and Sticky would make him loose it instead. It, being the contents of his stomach. But he wasn't about to tell Fatty and Sticky that.

"Yes, I see you!" He said with a dramatic voice he often used when telling Albus exactly how much of an idiot he was. "I see everything! I can see it all! Because... Because..." He made a dramatic pause. "I see dead people!" this was followed by James's mad-scientist-laughter.

The guards were not amused.

"Shut the hell up, nr 13!" Fatty growled through the door. "Or else..."

"Or else? Or else what? You'll come in here and shut me up? Please woman, kick off your high heels and let's see if you can kick my ass with that pregnant belly of yours!"

James had a talent for pissing people off, which was why he ten minutes later was the proud owner of a black eye. Fatty had intended to make it a matching pair, but poor Sticky had dragged him off before it happened. The whole ordeal made James in a terrible mood with a terrible attitude and a terrible headache. Not that it mattered, because James had gotten what James wanted...

Fatty was terribly guilty.

So when twenty minutes later James was allowed out for a bathroom break he executed stage 2 of The-Insane-Plan-To-Break-Out-From-Maximum-Security.

"Could I get some gum?" He asked Sticky, making sure to look like he was asking just because he felt like pissing Sticky off. The Auror's expression told him that the answer was_ get your own gum, you idiot bastard!_

James gave him a cute little smile. The expression changed to_ go and hang yourself before I do it for you! _

James wasn't that worried about it. Sticky and Fatty was clearly brothers. They had the same haircut, same face and same dusty robes that read _Auror Gallblåsa_ on the nametag. They both had mud brown, short hair and grey eyes. Their nose was the same crooked carrot and they had one identical dimple. Fatty was a little fatter than Sticky and Sticky a little taller, but otherwise the Aurors could have been identical. As soon as James stepped outside he came to the conclusion that they were twins.

"I don't have any gum" Auror Sticky said nonchalantly while his eyes attempted murder by willpower. This was clearly a lie since Sticky had earned his name when he had chewed gum all the way to the cell while whistling like a pig. It was a cool trick, but the whole ideal gave James a very good view of Sticky's mouth.

Two words; Toothbrush. Needed.

So when the lie tumbled out Sticky's mouth James snorted and discretely turned his head so that Fatty could get a got a good look at the black eye.

It took Fatty one second to break down.

"Give the boy some gum, Elvie. You have enough to last a century"

Rule number one of troublemaking… A guilty conscience was sometimes way more effective than blackmail and bribes. Especially if it came to the nice Auror who had low self-esteem and bad temper. Fatty was defiantly not the type to go around hitting random dudes, but James just brought out the best of people.

"Are you crazy? We're not supposed to give the prisoners anything! I'm not giving up my last everlasting strawberry gum just because you feel bad about knocking the looser around a little!" Sticky was clearly not very happy about the whole ordeal. James on the other hand, clearly was.

"Elvendork!" Fatty reprimanded. "Have some heart!"

_Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. This is so not the time to laugh! _A choked giggle escaped James's mouth and he would have been embarrassed if Sticky hadn't been growling and glaring and pressing the tip of his wand tighter against James's neck.

"Fine!" Sticky said when they just outside the bathroom. He pulled out a red ball of gum and threw it towards James."Have your stupid gum!"

James gave him a cheeky smile and popped it in his mouth. "Thank you" he said, making sure to chew loudly with an open mouth. "We can go back now. I've done my evil deed for the day"

Stage two completed.

The walk back was somewhat uncomfortable. Sticky took every excuse to step on his heels and accidently fire stinging curses into his neck and Fatty was whistling something that sounded like a dying dog calling for help. When they reached the door James prepared himself for stage three.

"Do your mum call you Elvie-Dorky?" he asked Sticky.

"Shut up!" came the answer.

James burst out in what sounded like a very fake coughing fit. He grabbed the door post with one hand, leaned towards the doorframe and held the other towards his mouth as he coughed out _"Dorky-Porky"_ in an old woman's voice. Sticky's face turned very purple and Fatty's looked like a pumpkin when he tried to hold back his laughter.

"Shut up!" Sticky sneered and pushed James inside. James made a big show of fumbling and flabbing his arms and screaming "Rape! _Rape! _HEEEEEEEEEEELP MEEEEE DOOORKYYYYY!" in an old woman's voice.

The door slammed shut with a bang and James was left in the shitty little cell. He waited two minutes before he moved from his place on the floor.

The plan had been simple when Freddy and James and invented it. It had taken some altering because James was in a serious state of undress –which actually wasn't that unusual- but the basics remained the same. Luckily the cells in the basement had never been altered during the wars and the mechanics of the doors remained the same. The thing about them was that there was not magic in the basements because of the prisoners that were held there, so the doors couldn't have magical locks either. The solution was automatic locks that clicked in place when you shut the door. If something –like say, a chewing gum- was in the way then the door shut it remained unlocked but looked locked.

James always wondered why Death Eaters never thought about it before. Perhaps they were too dependent on magic to even think about another way to escape. Come to think about it, those simpleminded idiots in the Auror Office never thought about it either.

James on the other hand, was more of a free-thinking person. He didn't really care about _how_ he got out, as long as he could go home and sleep off his terrible headache. So fifteen minutes after the guards had shut him inside the cell, James began Stage 3 in The-Insane-Plan-To-Break-Out-From-Maximum-Security.

He opened the door and walked out.

The thing about being a donut-eating Auror was that sometimes you let your guard down. It was rare and unexpected, but it always happened one time or another. Once the Weasley clan had surprised Uncle Ron in his office with a birthday cake and he had almost impaled himself on a quill in his hurry to hide behind his desk. That incident was frequently retold on Christmas, New Year, Uncle Ron's birthday and every time someone visited the burrow to drink tea or eat dinner.

The cells in the basement was rumored to be impossible to break out from. They were –according to most wizards- the safest place in the world except Azkaban. The poor bastards had no idea that they had James Breaking-In/out-of-impossible-places Potter II in their cell and was therefore unpleasantly surprised when he opened the door and took Sticky as a hostage.

In all the panic of his brother being held captive by a dangerous prisoner with said brother's wand, Fatty forgot one very important thing;

You couldn't use magic in the basement.

"Don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!" Fatty said and held up his hands in surrender. James gave him a cheerful smile that probably made him look like Hannibal Lector.

"Put down your wand and take off your clothes" He ordered the poor man. Looking back at it, he probably should have phrased it differently, but sometimes James didn't think about what popped out of his mouth, a fact that had earned him many detentions and kitchen duties. Especially not when he was having the worst headache ever, was practically naked and the guy in front of him had Auror robes. Add the last two things to each other and; equation solved…

Too bad Fatty wasn't a mind reader.

"What?!" The man asked, looking like James had asked him if he had condoms and a whip. "I-I'm sorry man, but I don't swing that way! Though go ahead and ask my brother, I think he's like you"

"Shut up, John! You were the one who dressed in pink at the Ministry's Christmas Bal!" Sticky sneered. James could feel a headache coming on. This was so not what had happened the other times he had decided to break out._ Those_ Aurors had gone down nicely and quietly with an original; _Fuck you._ _Those_ Aurors had not been arguing about their sexual orientation.

Or well, at least not _that_ much…

"Don't worry" James told the Auror with a tired voice. "this is defiantly going in my _Traumatic Memories Box. _Now, take off your clothes"

Fatty took off his clothes.

"Now go inside my cell and sit down. Don't do anything stupid like trying to capture me, because then you're going to have to part ways with your balls… Yes, _Plural_… No, you won't be reunited for the funeral"

They did as he said and when both Aurors were in the cell, James scratched away the gum and closed the door silently. He then proceeded to dress up in Fatty's Auror robes, ripped away the nametag and nonchalantly strolled down the hallway towards the stairs, all according to Stage four in James's-Insane-Plan-To-Break-Out-From-Maximum-Security.

Of course, James would be James if he didn't have such a bad luck. He was ten feet from the stairs when the voices drifted down and told him that he had company in the form of a new fugitive and the Aurors in charge.

Judging by the voices, neither was very happy.

Making a quick decision to avoid meeting the new neighbors, James opened the door to the left –which said Storage with a big S- and slipped inside.

Storage with a big S hadn't been used in an eternity. James knew this because his dad had forced him to work down here with Scorpius Malfoy after the bar fight they had last month about Rose. Or well, the bar fight they had last month fifty years ago about Rose. James couldn't quite remember because he had been exceptionally drunk at the time, but he thought it had something to do with the fight Rose and Malfoy had on Thanksgiving when she set his pants on fire.

Anyway, after the drunken bar fight –smashing that beer bottle into Malfoy's blond skull had been one of the highlights of James's life- James's father had decided that it was time to make James clean the dustiest, darkest and most abandoned place in the ministry.

The storage room in the basement was filled with dusty maps and files about the first Wizarding War, the Witch-hunt and Cornelius Fudge's most embarrassing mistakes. It was a room filled with boring things and James was not exactly the kind of person who liked boring things. Nonetheless, he had cleaned out the room and made Malfoy sort out all the files. The last part had been more fun than tricking Albus into eating ants and Malfoy had been traumatized for days after the Alfred Pickle file's pictures.

He hadn't expected to ever return to that dusty hell.

As the voices became louder outside, James turned around and looked around the room. It was mostly the same. The walls were puking-yellow, the floor and drawers were stuffed by papers and the wall on the other end of the room was filled with scribbles from the past. It was lighter, cleaner and newer now though. The room still smelled like mold and unhappiness, but now there was a faint scent of fresh parchment. But the thing that made the biggest difference was the ink, quill and Polaroid camera that sat on one of the drawers.

James just couldn't help himself.

The voices were long gone when he had finished up his little surprise. The fresh folder smelled strongly of ink and parchment. The bold letters**; SCORPIUS MALFOY; READ IF YOU DARE**, stared up at him like a neon sign. With tender movements James placed the folder in one of the drawers, put back the Polaroid camera and tried to stop the smile that sneaked up his face.

This shit was going to scare the crap out of that bastard.

It was also going to be his ticket home, if he was lucky.

Fifteen minutes later James was strolling down the Atrium, trying not to whistle fondly as he watched wizards and witches try to patch up a few statues and the ceiling. This was way easier than it had ever been before. There were no flying monkeys, no irritated Aurors with red hair grumbling about inherited insanity, no flying quills and no mad mother's with embarrassing tracking spells on sensitive body-parts (That one had been a real kill-joy). It was, to be honest, the first and only escape that had went without a single incident.

There was just one tiny little problem… Destiny loved to mess with James Potter.

"-looking for James Potter" a girl's voice said nearby.

"I don't know where… Wait, _there_ he is! Over there, with the messy hair!" Oh god no. Please don't… Just don't… Just a little longer… Just five more minutes and then he would be out and free and never again have to…

"Wait up, Potter, the lady here wants to speak with you. Oi! Potter!" A hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. James found himself facing a big man with the muscles of a blacksmith and a tiny girl with muggle clothes that looked like she wanted to hide in a corner somewhere. Blacksmith guy had robes from the Department of Magical Law enforcement and looked like he wanted to put James up on the wall along with Bambi and Mr. Elk.

If there was a god, he really had it out for James.

"Oh hey, I didn't hear you" James said with a strained smile. "Busy day you know, with that horrible imposter in the basement. Did you hear that he says he's _James Potter_? Should feed him to a manticora, that scumbag. I'm in a bit of a hurry, so could we make this quick? What's up?"

Mr. Blacksmith looked like he had come home to find a sniffler in his mother's ancient silverware. Maybe it was his normal expression, James thought. "What's up?" Mr. Blacksmith asked in a voice that seriously questioned James's sanity. James froze… They did say what's up in this century, didn't they?

"You know, what do you want?" he said with his Hannibal Lector smile. The poor muggle girl looked like she wanted to curl up in a ball and never speak to a human being again. Mr. Blacksmith shook his head and muttered something about a baby and smoking before he turned sharply and made his way through the crowd.

James turned to the muggle girl.

"Listen, I really can't-…"

"Benjy Fenwick sent me and he wanted me to tell you that he wanted to tell you that the kid wasn't lying and time's running out and he's not a Death Beater" It all came out like a mangled rush from her mouth. It was all very interesting, and James would have questioned her more if not for the Auror he had spotted on the other side of the Atrium.

The James Potter of this time had arrived, and he did not look happy.

James Potter II figured it was time to go.

"Listen" He told the poor muggle girl. "It's all very interesting and all, but why don't you go over to the nice man over there who looks like me and tell him exactly what you told me. And while you're at it, please tell him that the kid said; I told you so. Bye!" James turned to leave when a delicate hand grabbed his arm and held it with surprising strength.

"But the man said that I could only tell James Potter!"

"Well, he's James Potter too. There's two of us, sweetheart, and it's a really long story" James gave her a look he used when Lily set his Quidditch clothes on fire or Albus broke his new broom. The poor muggle girl immediately let go of him and swallowed thickly.

James headed for the exit, casting a brief look behind him to see the girl turn in his grandfather's direction. He turned back to quickly flee when he ran into a very familiar face, quite literally. Papers spilled up on the floor and the wizard he had run into fell graciously. James didn't have the time to appreciate the sight though, because he really didn't want to get in a duel in the middle of a brave escape from the Ministry.

He was out the door before Lucius Malfoy ever had the chance to draw his wand.

**I'm so sorry I'm late. You can't believe what kind of shit I have to put up with. I've had a lot of tests and homework and on top of it all I now have a cold, a headache and possibly a fever because I had to jump down an ice hole on my PE. **

**Yes, laugh at the poor girl with hypothermia, it makes me all warm and fussy inside.**

**It's going to be a while before my next update, because of my Swedish homework and social studies and math and every goddamn subject that refuses to let me have a break, so enjoy this one while you can.**

**Have a good day. And don't go jumping down strange holes in the ice just because your teacher says so, because then you'll get ill on the weekend. **

**Love; A.C **


	7. Part VII

**~*An Accident in Time*~**

**Written by: Cisselah**

_Raised by two mothers...wow, most of us barely survive one. _

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part VII**

Ginny Potter was married to Harry Potter. Ginny Potter was the mother of Albus Severus Potter and James Sirius Potter. Ginny Potter was the baby sister of the makers of Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes. Ginny Potter had led a rebellion at Hogwarts under Snape's regime. Ginny Potter had _survived_ Snape's regime.

So Ginny Potter was not a person that was easily surprised. She hadn't gone through Umbridge, Snape, a wizarding war and about twenty years of being married to Harry Potter just to be surprised by something that could be read in the papers. What she was surprised by, though, was the familiar face of her oldest son plastered all over The Daily Prophet together with the bold headline; _**Where is James Potter?**_

What she was surprised by was her brother's deer-caught-under-a-troll expression when she asked about it.

"Don't you worry, Gin" He said nervously. "Harry's sorting everything out" This of course, made Ginny worry even more.

All her life Ginny had played the role of the cool mother. She had of course scolded her children and been pretty hard on them when they decided to set fire to the kitchen or so, but Ginny had been relatively okay when they went out in the night to hunt dragons with teaspoons and bowls on their head. Or well, as okay as a mother could ever be when she had three troublemaking children to worry about. At least she hadn't wrapped them in a blanket and stuffed them in a closet like her mother would have done (even though she very much felt like doing it) or followed their daughter around on her dates just to be sure nothing bad happened (Merlin, no! That was Harry's job). Even when James went off on one of his dreadful nights to drink himself drunk and sleep with everything that moved, Ginny just scolded him properly and pretended not to know that it was because her son was hopelessly in love with his best friend.

Actually, Ginny liked to pretend she didn't know that her son wasn't a virgin (which was pretty much impossible thanks to the detailed descriptions in the Prophet).

Yes, Ginny Potter was the cool mother… but the moment her brother nervously stuttered out some nonsense to calm her down, Ginny went from the cool mother to the worried dragon mother that was about to eat a hole armada to get her child back.

"Don't worry!? _Don't worry_!? He's_ gone_, Ron! My baby-boy is _gone_!" She was waved her hands in front of her poor brother's face to illustrate just how upset about this she was. He flinched back, probably because she was still holding her wand in one hand. "Don't tell me to not worry, because I sure as hell will!"

Ronald Weasley considered himself a brave man. He had faced down Voldemort, Dragons, Trolls and Snape without any worry. He had his own Chocolate Frog card, for Merlins sake! People looked up to him and saw a fearless Auror that had done great things.

What people didn't know was that Ron Weasley was afraid of three things.

His wife, his sister and spiders.

All three of them scared the crap out of him from time to time. This was the reason to why he suddenly forgot all Auror training and in vain tried to drag up some horrible memory of how you handled frightened unidentified animals from the Magical Creatures class.

He had a vague memory that you were supposed to grab them around the nose and try feed them raw meat.

"You are going to tell me all you know _right now_ or Morgana help me but you will regret it!"

Ron decided that he was not going to grab his sister's nose and try feed her raw meat.

"_Why haven't anyone told me!? Why hasn't _Harry_ told me?!" _She shrieked.

"Harry didn't want you to worry!" He blurred out like an idiot in a dumb attempt to calm her down.

Momma Dragon did not like that one single bit. Her brown eyes narrowed and turned into the deep pits of hell and her red hair suddenly looked like a cascade of fire about to eat everything in its path. Ginny Potter looked like a nightmarish demon or a dark boggart-y creature that didn't want to look under every stone but destroy everything in its path until every damn stone you could look under no longer existed.

"_What_?! He kept this from me!? He kept _this_ from me?! _This_?! This is my baby that we're talking about, and he didn't think that it was a good idea to tell me because he could handle it himself?! Because he thought I was too weak to do it?! This is just like him! He needs to learn that I can handle myself and I don't need him to baby me! I'm grown up now and I can take care of my babies myself!"

Ron tried to backtrack. "That's not what he meant... He just-"

"Just _try_ to take my babies from me, and I'll curse you so bad you'll wish you were in Azkaban! Now, tell me what hussy he banged last night so that I can go there and_ make_ her tell me where he is! And don't even think about stopping me, because nobody is touches my baby and gets away with it, especially not one of those horrid fan girls!"

Sometimes Ginny went a little overboard when it came to family.

"C-calm down... Harry wouldn't want you to..."

"Harry wouldn't want me to what?! Go after the bitch that did something to James! You know what? If Harry wants to tell me something, he can do it himself! This conversation is done, and now I'm going to visit my husband and ask him why the hell he didn't tell me my son is missing!"

"Ginny! Ginny please don't...-" The fireplace burst out in an explosion of green flames and Ginny Potter left her desperate brother to step into the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic.

Finding Harry wasn't hard... It never really was. There was always a crowd of fans or trainees or a few curious reporters hanging around in the edges of his presence, spying on him while he did paperwork or interviews or happened to drink a glass of water in the middle of the day. And if there wasn't any of them hanging around, then Harry was always surrounded by one of those brave people that dared to go up and _talk_ to the savior of the Wizarding World.

Ginny simply pushed her way through the Atrium and headed towards the Auror Office where she followed a trail of blushing little girls to the spot that was farthest away from Harry's office.

She didn't even bother acknowledging the blond trainee that was talking to her husband.

"Harry" She growled out and felt a stitch of satisfaction when the Malfoy kid jerked up like someone suddenly had shoved a broom up his ass. "Do you know what I saw in the Prophet today?"

Unlike the scattering girls, Harry Potter didn't as much as flinch when he heard his wife's voice. He looked tall and proud and so unforgivable handsome where he stood in front of her that Ginny wanted to grip his collar and snog him senseless there and then. She restrained herself, of course, and her eyes narrowed even further.

"The situation is under control, there's absolutely nothing to worry about" Harry said calmly and emerald green eyes carefully observed his wife's expression. Ginny felt herself burst with anger and worry and she snapped out her wand and pressed it dangerously towards his collar as she struggled to stay calm.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" When she spoke it came out in a whisper, deadly and dangerous, as she ignored her husband's comforting words and looked him in the eyes to search for the truth. "And don't tell me you didn't want me to get hurt, because I'm not a stupid first-year student anymore, Harry, and I deserve to know what is going on!"

The savior of the Wizarding World sighed and briefly closed his eyes.

Ginny knew what was coming next.

"There's absolutely nothing to worry about" The head of the Auror Office said calmly. "Everything is fine"

Fine? Fine!? Why don't you continue to spew bullshit around while I stick my wand up your ass and castrate you? Ginny thought viciously and the wand in her hand trembled with the reckless impulse to render her husband infertile.

Judging by Harry's expression, he had a pretty good idea about the thoughts circling around in his wife's head. "Honey…" He said. "Don't-"

"Don't what?! Don't worry? Too late! Don't be stupid? _You_ were the one who married _me_! Don't make a scene? I can make a goddamn scene if I want to! My baby is missing! _Missing!_ Do you understand what that means? That means I have the right to turn this world upside down and make every bloody scene there is to make. I have the right to interrogate and possibly maim _every _witness there is, including the good-for-nothing _whore _who slept with _my baby_ last night! You tell me where she is _right now_ Harry James Potter, so I can go there and_ beat_ some answers out of her!"

Harry looked understandably alarmed.

"Ginny" he said seriously as he reached up to redirect his wife's wand towards the wide-eyed Malfoy Junior. "You will do no such thing. I will not have another one of James's leftovers placed in St Mungos. We've talked about this before, remember? No maiming, no cursing and _no murder attempts. _I'm sure James is just fine, he's probably in a ditch somewhere sleeping it off"

"Then why haven't he called?! James always checks up with me in the morning. _Always_, even if it's just to say good morning. It's not like him to just ignore me like that. Something has happened, I know it has, and what good do I do if I'm just sitting here waiting for him to return?!" Desperation sneaked its way into her voice as she violently stabbed her wand in the empty air to show just how worried she was. The blond trainee winced every time the tip of the wand pointed in his direction.

"Ginny, calm down"

"Fuck off!"

And with that, Ginny Potter turned around and stormed down the hallway to ransack her husband's office for clues. Her robes flared dramatically behind her and the poor wizard who almost walked straight into her when she turned left had dreadful nightmares the rest of the week about a red dragon with burning eyes.

Her husband was left in the hallway together with a blond trainee and a massive headache. He didn't follow her though, because past experiences had told him that when Ginny Potter entered Momma Dragon mood it was best to leave her alone for a while to cool off.

Ginny on the other hand, was a tornado in a mall. She sneered and glared and made rude gestures to every wizard and witch that walked passed (especially the fan-girl ones). When she finally reached Harry's office she had traumatized fourteen people, one of them so bad that her boggart had changed.

"…you sure that he's gone?" A feminine voice asked from inside the office. Ginny froze, her hand resting on the doorknob and her eyes narrowed. At first she thought it was one of those horrible witches who tried to go through Harry Potter's office to find some lost underwear to sell in a corner of Knockturn Alley but then she recognized the voice with a start. Madeleine... It was Madeleine Holmes. But what was Maddy doing inside Harry's office? As far as Ginny knew, Maddy spent the afternoons in the holidays in a couch with a bucket of ice-cream or…

"Yeah… Scorpius is distracting him right now" The familiar voice of her youngest son said.

That pretty much explained it all.

The sound of papers ruffling and a few muffled swears were heard through the thick oak door. Ginny raised an eyebrow and leaned forward to hear better, her ear hovering a few centimeters over the thick oak wood.

"Where the fuck is everything?" Her nephew's hoarse voice snapped. "I can't find _anything_ useful at all!"

"Maybe you shouldn't have drunk so much last night then" The feminine voice of Maddy replied dryly.

"At least I didn't have to do mouth-to-mouth with a toilet seat" Freddy replied sarcastically. There was a tone of gloating in there too, mixed with something that stung bitter of poison. Whatever had happened last night had clearly upset her poor nephew.

Serves you right. Ginny couldn't help but to gloat. Drinking is for adults.

"Ohhh, how cute…" Maddy said sweetly, her voice an epitome of sweet death. "Nearly as cute as the picture of you and those pink fluffy handcuffs"

Ginny pressed her ear even closer to the door, her missing baby completely forgotten. This was the kind of gossip that the wives of the Weasley clan rarely got a hold of. Merlin, this would completely terrify Angelina and make Fleur ecstatic. She just couldn't wait until she could share this with them.

Ginny blinked and a frown spread over her face. She really had spent too much time with Audrey and Fleur if she was nearly wetting herself at the prospect of some juicy gossip.

"Albus! You swore you wouldn't show her!" Freddy's horrified voice leaked through the door. Ginny could hear her son laugh.

"I couldn't help myself! I mean, Kitty-cat… Seriously?"

"You foul Slytherin!"

"I'll take that as a compliment, thank you very much"

"Fuck off, you brute!"

Ginny had heard enough. The boys –and girl- were obviously searching for something and Ginny had a sneaking suspicion that she was looking for the same thing (whatever that may be). As entertaining as it was to hear her son and her nephew argue about the mysterious pink, fluffy handcuffs, she wasn't in the mood to stand by and hear the words _Fuck off_ leave any other mouth then hers.

So Ginny Potter calmly opened the oak door, stepped inside to survey the frozen shapes of Albus & co and said; "What did you say, dear nephew?"

"Shit" Albus swore and slammed shut the drawer he had been shuffling through. He straightened up with a terrified expression and stared at her with wide eyes, the bottle of Ogden's finest Firewhiskey forgotten in his hands. "Mom! We were just… I mean… How…? What…? What are you doing here?!" Ginny threw a meaning eye at the bottle of Firewhiskey and her son immediately put it down on the desk.

Did it make her a bad mother if she enjoyed the way her son squeaked and squirmed?

Crossing her arms over her chest Ginny leaned back against the doorframe and raised a delicate eyebrow. "I could ask you the same thing, young man. Aren't you supposed to help your Aunt Audrey with the decorations for your father's birthday party?"

Which is the day after tomorrow and will probably be postponed because of the birthday boy's gruesome murder, Ginny thought as she felt the familiar snake of worry curl up around her insides.

"Busted" Maddy said, her eyes wide and her face turning bright red. Freddy and Albus turned and glared at her, their eyes clearly telling her to shut up so that they could try to save the situation. Ginny wished them luck, a little curious about what kind of explanation could excuse this.

"Holmes, shut it" Freddy snapped under his breath as he turned back to Ginny, his expression turning defiant.

It was almost sad, Ginny thought as she noticed Maddy's angry glare, that they were so madly in love with each other and still so obvious to it. They reminded her a little of Hermione and Ron, fighting like cat and dog one moment and snogging the shit out of each other the next. Possibly without the snogging part.

They were cute though. Ginny could still remember the first time her oldest son had dragged home a blushing, timid girl with choppy brown hair that half hid behind him as if he was a knight in shining armor. She had been so different from reckless Selina Wood who played in the mud and got into fights with the boys.

The first time Freddy saw her he had leaned over her menacingly –he had been tall for his age- and sneered; "Who's the kid?"

Maddy, who had been an innocent and shy girl back then, had straightened up and with tomato red cheeks snapped; "Who's the jerk?"

It had been love at first sight.

Years after their first encountered, not much had changed. Maddy was still short with choppy brown hair, her eyes were still muddy brown and she still had a tendency to blush at the most ridiculous things. Freddy was still tall, lanky and wild. Wilder almost... Poor Angelina had a hard time keeping up with him these days.

And still they fought like two little children having a tug war over their favorite toy.

"Fuck off, Weasley!" Maddy sneered.

Ginny cleared her throat. Their eyes returned to her lingering form and Maddy swallowed thickly. Albus made a throaty noise to gather his mother attention and stuck his chin up in the air defiantly.

"Would you believe me if I said Aunt Audrey sent me?" He asked.

"No"

"Aunt Audrey sent me"

Ginny snorted.

"So you didn't come here to find the name of the girl James went home with last night because you think something horrible happened to him and you want to know what so you broke into your dad's office to steal his Firewhiskey after bribing your best friend into distracting him? Or is that a silly conclusion from my part and your Aunt Audrey sent you here?"

Albus swallowed.

"Yes?"

Her son really was getting worse and worse at this for every day that went. James at least had some class with his excuses. Aunt Audrey sent me, my ass! Ginny thought sadly.

Albus did look kind of pale, his face stiff and his chin raised defiantly in the air as if to dare his mother to ground him. He was wearing that horrible black cloak with the scorch hole in it, the one Ginny had told him to throw away ages ago. He looked so like his father that Ginny wanted to cry and kiss his cheeks and hug him so tight that he screamed "_Mother_!" in a horrified voice. He was still standing behind his father's desk, half obscured by a pile of papers.

Beside him in the background stood Maddy, her choppy, brown hair hanging loosely in her face and her much too big eyes wide and somewhat terrified at the prospect of getting caught. Her cheeks were flushed a pretty red color and she was dressed in muggles clothes; slim jeans and a tank top with a kitten hugging the heart. Underneath the kitten the pink bold letters _I 3 pussies_ glared electrically.

On the other side of the room, his dark eyes still sneaking burning glances at Maddy, was Freddy Weasley. His red hair was messily styled in a rolled-out-of-bed-and-sleepwalked-though-a-thorn bush kind of way. He too was wearing muggle clothes; ripped jeans and a green Quidditch shirt that said_; My broomstick is the best._

The next generation were rude little buggers with too much spunk and too little brain, Ginny decided as she stared at the shirt. Walking around with insinuating texts on their shirts that made old people choke on their spit and die of shock.

Where could she get one?

"Fine" Her son said, breaking her out of her musings. "I'll admit I broke into dad's office, but I didn't _bribe_ anyone! Scorpius was perfectly fine with being a part of this plan, especially when I asked who's knickers it was under his bed" Of course her son wouldn't bribe anyone. No, it was the good old-fashioned blackmail that made his day.

Ginny was so proud of him she could burst.

"Are you going to take my broom now?" Tempting, oh so tempting. But no, Ginny would not take his broom because Ginny had other plans for him. The silence stretched and a shiny bead of sweat rolled down her son's forehead towards one emerald green eye. Ginny watched it in fascination before straightening up and the small smile she had wore slipped away as she put her hands on her hips in a Momma Dragon kind of gesture.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Start searching! We don't have all day and I seriously doubt that the Malfoy kid is going to be able to keep Harry away for long" Three pair of jaws touched the floor gently before retracting and curving up in wild grins.

"Dude," Ginny could hear Freddy mutter as she strode across the floor towards the trashcan. "you've got the best mother ever!"

Snorting at that exclamation, Ginny snapped out her wand and levitated a pair of papers files up from the trashcan. The bold black titles stared up at her. **Choking Cauldrons. Crying Cookies. Mundugus Fletcher. Mundungus Fletcher.** **SCORPIUS MALFOY; READ IF YOU DARE.**** Mundungus Fletch-… **Hold on a second. What was James's handwriting doing on a fifty-something year old file in her husband's trashcan? And Merlin's pink nutcases, why was he writing to Malfoy of all people? Her son hated Malfoy. Her older one that is… The younger one was like a lost puppy around the blond wizard.

Ginny snatched it up from the air and flipped it open, choking slightly on the dust that exploded from the moldy pages. She blinked furiously for a minute as her eyes watered because of the exploding dust. She suspected that is was some kind of spell (she wouldn't put it past James) to annoy the reader even more.

Coughing up the last bit of ancient dust Ginny turned her narrowed, brown eyes to the bold letters that covered the file and some half faded rapport on a marriage between Geffler Glousel and Marilyn Muncher.

**Dear Malfoy. **The file read.

**This is a friend. **Ginny very much doubted that.

**I'd like to say thank you for buying that fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh glass of firewhiskey to me the other night. I'd also like to say thank you for letting me go home with a psycho that sent me back in time. **

**There, I've said it. Now, remember, I'm going to kick your ass when I get home, so you better buy a ticket to Thailand or some other foreign place because my foot is just aching with the need to smash your balls in.**

**You won't see me coming, 'cause fifty years can change one's appearance rather drastically.**

**Patiently awaiting your funeral. **

**J**

**P.S Tell Izak and Albus I'll kick them too for good measure.**

Disbelief spread through every part of her body and made Ginny feel numb. Casting a glance at the top of the paper, the date (30th July 1980) appeared to be written in James's messy handwriting.

"Did you find anything?" Albus asked. Wordlessly Ginny handed him the file and sat down on the edge of the desk, her hand automatically reaching out to grip the bottle of Firewhiskey as a comfort.

Taking a gentle sip of the stuff, she watched as Albus eyebrows began their dance on his forehead. First they drew together in a frown, then they rose in surprise before lowering in disbelief and finally climbing to come to a halt at his hairline. "Why the fuck would he kick _my_ ass! What about Freddy? He was the one with the Toxic Troll shots! This isn't fair!"

Both Maddy and Freddy had peaked over his shoulders and both were wearing expressions of shock.

"Fifty years?" Maddy asked with a pale face.

"I feel sorry for you when he comes back" Freddy told Albus before paling. When he comes back was not the question, they all knew, the question was_ if_ he came back. There was a brief silence when the occupants of the room mulled over this new development.

James was fifty years in the past. James was fifty years in the past _in a warzone_. He was alone and without backup in a war. A wizarding war. With Voldemort and Bitchy Bellatrix Lestrange and Snape and…

James could _die_. He could die and they would never know. They would never have known because he would already be dead. He would always have been dead, cold in some unmarked grave somewhere all while Ginny, his mother, was bitching on about broken brooms and misplaced boxers.

Ginny felt her icy insides suddenly heat up. She couldn't allow this to happen and she was damned if she wasn't going to fix it. Starting with the source of the problem.

_The psycho_… She thought with narrowed eyes as she slammed the bottle down so had that it broke and the amber liquid spilled all over the papers of the desk. Jumping up she ripped open the drawers and rummaged through them with a passion hot like a dragons flame.

"Mum! What are you doing?!" Albus shocked voice cut through her haze of burning fury. Ginny ignored him as she ripped open the papers and let them fly all over the place like a giant rain of paperwork.

It has to be somewhere around here. Ginny thought with a growl. _It has to be_. Somewhere around here. Somewhere…

There!

Straightening up she glared at the post-it note that said; _Galen McTrawe, Ale street 141, 3rd floor, apartment 6G, _and turned to the teenagers that stood on the other side of the desk with an expression that could torch penguins.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" She asked angrily. "I'm going to kick that bitch's ass!"

**First of it all, I'm sorry if you find any of this language offensive. It just might reflect my current mood (Up to my ears in homework, coughing up my lungs, growling over the mess my room has turned into and avoiding the agonizing lectures from my mum). And yes… I know I'm late. Late like in Very-Super-Duper-Late-and-you-should-kill-me-with-a-pink-shovel. **

**Secondly; I've noticed some minor confusion with the timeline. Just so you know, In Ginny and Harry and Albus, bla, blab la (The next generations) time it's 29th of July and James has been missing since last night when he followed the pretty bartender home. In James Potter I and Sirius and Lily ( The Marauders) time it's 30th of July and James was been in the custody of the Auror Office for a day and a night before he escaped (That night was also the night Benjy had a runin with Bellatrix).**

**So there. Now, I've got to say I'm not so sure what I think of this chapter. I'd be delighted if you could tell me what you think (Too much? Like Ginny? What do you think about Momma Dragon?). Or maybe I would be, it's kind of hard to tell since I'm pretty much a shaking spaghetti roll. Anyway, I hope you like it 3. **

**The next time I update will be somewhere ranging from a week to a month or two because as you all know, my homework has to get done and I pretty much suck at it (I spent an hour staring at my math book last week).**

**Hugs and kisses (and hopefully no attacks with pink shovels)**

**A.C**


	8. Part VIII

**~*An Accident in Time*~**

**Written by: Cisselah**

_Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have fun at all._

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part VIII**

Benjy had been high before -it was kind of inevitable in the seventies- but he could safely say that he had never been high before on experimental potions because a megalomaniac mad man had decided that he needed to be taught some manners -never mind that he had _actually _had been sick when he had been sick. The torture and Apparition had made the world blurry and his stomach turn and eventually (He had tried to hold it in, he swore!) he had been violently sick and thrown up.

Although Benjy was man enough to admit that he had been somewhat purposely aiming in the Dark Lord's direction.

Being sick was a bad idea. Being sick an evil Dark Lord that planned world domination was an even worse idea. Being sick on an evil Dark Lord that planned world domination and then _joking_ (mocking him) about it was _the _worst idea_ ever_. Especially when said evil Dark Lord wasn't exactly the joking type.

If Benjy had expected dark dungeons and chains and twisted, big knives with jagged edges he would have been disappointed. There was no chains or twisted, big knives with jagged edges (Though Benjy had been promised there would be lots of them later) and instead of a dungeon Benjy was tied to a stuffy chair in the Malfoy's dinner room, surrounded by blurry, red and black robes.

He wasn't sure if he would have preferred the dungeon or not. After all, the peacocks made him want to scratch out his eyes and he still wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or if the Malfoy's really had such awful taste.

The Dark Lord had been fairly nice about the whole thing, throwing up and all considered, and had pleasantly informed Benjy that he was either going to betray his friends and secrets or be viciously tortured until a permanent bed in St. Mungos's long-term ward was made available. Benjy had thought about it for a moment (His uncle Barnacle always told him to think before talking) before he pleasantly told the most powerful dark wizard of all time to kindly _fuck the hell off _before getting a little more sick on him. The only explanation he had to explain this action was that he had been delirious by the time they brought him in, because of the... well... the torture...

The evil Dark Lord on the other hand, had not been so sympathetic.

Gathering some of his equally evil followers in the dinner room, the Dark Lord informed Benjy that he was going to tell him everything (which made Benjy giggle, because it sounded vaguely as if they were two ladies gossiping over a cup of tea) whether Benjy wanted it or not. Despite his somewhat blurry state of consciousness, Benjy was highly aware of the situation (Though the giggling unicorns and sparkly rainbows did distract him a little). So when the Dark Lord asked him the question if he wanted to join his circle of zombie warriors (or something like that) or face the consequences, Benjy told him exactly where the Dark Lord could stuff it.

He regretted it two minutes later when the trollish bitch with a corset shoved a green potion down his throat.

If he would have to described the feeling, Benjy would have said that it felt a little like being tied down and attacked by a malicious bludger. You saw it coming, you knew what would happen, and still you screamed and cried in pain when it smashed your face in. There was no running, no hiding and no defending against the onslaught that returned again and again and again until you pretty much felt like slaughtering someone yourself. His body burned as if acid raced through his veins and inside his chest grew a slimy ball of thorns that cut him from inside. His throat smoldered like someone had filled it with gasoline and smoldering cigarettes. His joints ground against each other painfully as he trashed in the chair, screaming madly as the pain -oh Merlin, the pain!- stabbed him again and again and again and again…

It was worse than the Cruciatus, because the Cruciatius allowed only pain to occupy your mind while this mysterious green potion left your mind horribly sharp and filled with other things, other memories and thoughts. The Cruciatus was physical torture, the potion was psychological too. It dragged up every memory Benjy had ever felt ashamed of and then it shoved them under his nose eagerly all at the same time. He saw himself clearly in a metaphoric mirror, his flaws visible to the naked eye, and he was so ashamed of himself, so filled with self-hatred, that he couldn't turn away. Because he _deserved _this torture. He deserved every minute of it and he didn't deserve for it to end one way or another.

At first it was all he could think about, the raw feelings in his head. Then slowly the world returned and he was still in agony, still reliving the moments of his past, but lucid enough to be useful to the Dark Lord.

The smug bastard smiled, his lips curving into something that reminded Benjy of the way light reflects of a razor, and if he hadn't been so caught up in the effects of the potion he would have been terrified.

"I call it the Drink of Despair" The Dark Lord said politely, like they were discussing the weather. "It's not finished yet, and I've never had the chance to use it on a human being before, but I am most curious of its effects. Would you like to tell me perhaps?"

_Kill him, kill me, kill nothing and everything._ His head was a mess and Benjy was pretty sure he was going to take a permanent vacation to the long-term patient's ward if he survived this.

The Dark Lord brought forward another potion, still wearing that cold razor smile of his, and while a greasy wizard with a callous face forced his jaw open. The second potion, this one looking and tasting like clean water, slid down his throat smoothly and filled him with a floating feeling of peace. It eased the pain in his throat and to his embarrassment Benjy swallowed it greedily.

"I'm very interested in how the two potions react to one another, and after much thought and considering I've decided to simply try it and observe the effect" The Dark Lord seemed almost amused. The bitch giggled and Benjy felt his eyes widen when he finally understood.

Veritaserum.

Damn.

Shit.

Fuck.

Black was never going to let him live this down.

The Dark Lord sat down on a comfortable chair in front of him, his face illuminated by the flickering candlelight. Crimson eyes watched him with the patient of a coiled snake and even through the potions Benjy could feel his heart beat faster with either fear or rage. He wasn't sure which was which anymore, or if there was a difference at all.

_This is the Dark Lord. _His mind whispered_. This is the man- no, the monster- who killed dozens, slaughtered them like they were pests. This is the_ thing_ that could split me open in two and drive me insane just with a flick of his wand. He's done it before and he won't hesitate, won't feel merciful, will most probably even laugh when he twists me beyond recognition. He did it to Zara, twisted all the information out of her like a wet rag and then threw her away when she was nothing but a vegetable._

_Crap. I'm screwed._

"Indeed you are" The pale creature said coolly, his crimson eyes filled with sardonic pleasure at Benjy's suffering. "So why don't you spare yourself a part of your pain? Lord Voldemort is merciful to those who serve him faithfully and if you tell me everything I want to know, I will grant you a quick death"

The dinner room was silent, awaiting Benjy's response (Sadly, Benjy was barely lucid enough to understand that the creature in front of him was talking, so there was a minute where he was sure there was going to be no response at all) and the tension in the air was heavy and electric. They watched him with hungry eyes and Benjy could feel his skin crawl with the attention the dark robes were giving him.

They expected him to give in, he realized. There wasn't a single one of them that thought that he would actually _refuse. _And why would he? Sooner or later the Dark Lord would find the information in his mind. Right now he was being played with, toyed like a mouse with a cat's claws weighting down its tail. There was no chance in hell that he would get out of this situation alive (Even if a distant part of him mind kept a little flame of hope that someone would rescue him), so why didn't he just give in and tell the pale creature in front of him everything?

Pride, he guessed. Pride and stupidity.

If the Dark Lord wanted the information, he would have to wretch it out of Benjy's cold corpse's hands. If he couldn't get out of this, then he would at least buy his friends some time. He owed them that, especially for the Christmas gift he gave Dearborn. He would sit here and not a single world would spill from his lips if he so had to sewn them together to stop it.

"I don't want to, 'cause I got a problem with authority" Or not... Where the hell had that come from anyway? He did not have a problem with authority, unless said authority was Dearborn or McKinnon or Potter or... Well, he did not have a problem with authority and he had no idea why he would say something like-

Oh.

Vertiaserum was a bitch.

"It works" The Dark Lord said with his razor sharp voice. "Remarkable... My theory was right. The Drink of Despair allows the Veritaserum to work while the subject is in pain without any complications" Except for the burning charcoals that were occupying his stomach, but never mind that.

"I feel sick" Benjy said, the words spilling out of him without his permission. "I want to go home and I don't want the unicorns to dance anymore, 'cause they're annoying me. I want the greasy girl in the corner over there to stick her head in a tub with bubbles, 'cause I like bubbles. My mom used to bath me in a bubble bath when I was little and the bubbles were so pretty with their colors and they broke when I touched them. I miss my mom, because right before one of you baboons murdered her I told her that she was a fucking disappointment and that I hated her. I feel really guilty for that, so I lie awake at night and think about what a bastard I am, quite literally too, because my dad thinks I'm the result of an affair and I feel guilty for that too, even though I know it isn't my fault"

Oh dear Merlin, kill me now. He was having a therapy session with a bunch of Death Eaters and the Dark _fucking_ Lord.

But he couldn't stop the words from spilling. Every dark secret and insecurity bubbling up like hot lava in his insides. It was a little like puking. It felt awful when you did it but better when it was over.

"I got a T in my Charm class when I was a first year, so I took Albert Bensson's essay and switched it and got an A while he got a T. He cried all night in the common room, 'cause we Ravenclaws are very serious about the studying thing, you know? I killed my owl once too, but that was by mistake. I was practicing _Wingardium Leviosa _when Baby got in the way of the wardrobe and I let go of the spell for just a second and it smashed her" Stop it! Oh Helga Huffelpuff's Holy Horse Head, this better stop now. "I look like a twelve-year old too, and I hate that because every girl that looks at me thinks I'm underage and I can't get a drink or get laid or talk dirty without someone asking me where my mom is. I think that's why-" No! No, he wasn't going to say it. He wasn't going to… "-I'm a virgin, but that could be because I'm just too much of a coward to do it too"

There were snickers and snorts of disgust and looks that told him that the Death Eaters were very much enjoying this. Benjy on the other hand, was not really enjoying this, although he supposed it would have been worse if he hadn't been so drugged up that he was literally seeing stars.

"I got close to doing it once, with this really cute girl named Michelle. But then her cat bit me in the ass and I was out of there" Oh Morgana's kinky knickers, this was the most embarrassing thing he had ever experienced since... "I asked my mom if masturbating was bad once, and she told me that if I did it I was going to be handcuffed to a bed with a Jack Russel for a month. There was a boy in my neighborhood called Jack Russel, so I told him I had masturbated and handcuffed myself to his bed. My dad had to erase his mind 'cause he freaked and called me a fag"

Why? Why?! Oh, why was this happening to him?! He had gone to church, hadn't he? He had been a very good boy with no vices other than... "I smoke a lot, 'cause I think it's cool and will get me girls. I drink a lot too, but that's only because I'm miserable and has bad self-esteem. I also think I'm crazy right now, because there's a leprechaun dancing on your head and you're wearing a pink tutu, Mr. Voldemort"

Mr Voldemort observed him with cold, calculating eyes.

"Interesting" was the only thing he said. "Very interesting"

"I believed in Santa Claus until I was twelve when Lestrange strung me upside down in the common room and I saw the house elves put the presents under the Christmas tree. In the morning I pretended that I cried because I had a black eye and not because all my childhood dreams of meeting Santa were crushed" Benjy was seriously considering offing himself right now. It should be easy, he just had to mention something to Bellatrix Lestrange about how squeky her master's voice was.

"Benjamin" The Dark Lord said coldly, and Benjy stopped immediately to glare at him with a flaming red face and wide, unfocused eyes. "I think that is enough, thank you." The dry tone in his voice made some of his braver followers laugh. "But what I really wanted to know is about the boy you have hidden in the Ministry basement"

"The Potter-imposter?"

"Yes, the... _Potter-imposter_..."

"He showed up after your raid and he was wearing only his underwear and I was kind of jealous 'cause I wanted to have a pair of those. He looked at lot like James and he said he was James but that he wasn't _James _James. He said he was a different James and that he was going to be late for a birthday party and I thought that James would have an aneurism, the other James, because he was swearing so much. I had brought him and Black down to the basement because I was so scared that James would torch me if I went alone. This deal with his wife has left him pretty burned out, you know, and sometimes he scares me so much I wish I laid in bed at home with my pussy" Oh dear Merlin's left ball, why did he always pick the wrong words? "Kitten I mean. Her name is Barbie and I love her. I love her because she's the only one that loved me and I have deep anxiety issues that I hide under a joking personality and when I get nervous or sad or angry or scared I make funny jokes. Like I would do now if you hadn't drugged me down. I'm a little blue about the drugging part. Do you do this to everyone, or am I just special?"

Goddamn it. Why couldn't he pass out or something?

"What did this James Potter imposter say about how he got here" No, he wasn't going to talk. He wasn't going to say one more word about-

"That he was in a fight with a naked girl and she cursed him and his watch broke"

Mother F-…

"Actually, when I was little I-" Benjy started to say, the potion making his tongue go loose and his thoughts wander, but the Dark Lord had clearly had enough of his mindless babbles and thankfully silenced him wave of his wand. He turned to the dark-haired bitch on his left side, who looked terrible in that dress by the way, and when he spoke his razor-sharp voice was thoughtful.

"There must have been complications on the other side" He told Bellatrix, seemingly indifferent to the fact that there was a dozen of Death Eaters in the room. With a startle, Benjy realized that this must be the inner circle, the Dark Lord's most trusted Death Eaters.

He was in a room with _the inner circle_.

He was in a room with_ the_ _Dark Lord_.

Swearing was therapeutic, even if you were placed under a silencing spell and no one could hear you.

Ignoring the silenced wizard who was currently questioning the Dark Lord's mother's specie and gender, Lord Voldemort turned towards his followers in general.

"My dear comrades" He said. "It seems as if our little friend has failed to deliver her end of the deal. To complicate thing furthermore, Lucius has informed me that Potter has disappeared from the Ministry's holding cells, in which he had been previously confided. Our friend has one more chance to make up for this grave mistake. Meanwhile, you will search for our time traveler and I give you permission to get information _any_ way necessary"

Benjy didn't like the sound of this. He really should get to Dumbledore and warn the old man, but somehow he seemed to be tied down to a chair. He was a little fuzzy on the details, but he hoped that this wasn't some kind of kinky game, because he really needed to pee.

"My Lord" The dark-haired bitch squeaked, her eyes big and adoring. "What do we do with the prisoner? It's quite obvious that he's a little… unhinged"

The Dark Lord smiled a razor smile. It filled Benjy with an icy fear and only know did he realize that the agonizing torture that the first potion had provided had faded. The calming effects of Veritaserum had also faded, or perhaps the Dark Lord's was just so scary that his presence overrode the artificial calm.

Either way, it didn't help Benjy's pee-problem.

"And whose fault is that Bellatrix? I do recall that you got a bit… carried away… when you were supposed to capture him" The smile on the Dark Lord's pale face was bone shattering terrifying. He looked at the member of his inner circle with crimson eyes that promised violence and painful death. "Interrogate him some more. He must know something else about that old codger's_ Order_" Disgust rimmed the word Order.

Bellatrix bowed, her lips curving into something that was terrifying and seductive. A promise of pain and pleasure.

Somehow Benjy though that there would be more pain than pleasure.

"As you wish, my Lord" She said with adoring eyes.

Benjy threw up.

-w-

Children were pests.

How on earth had he agreed to this again? He should have known better. Hell, he couldn't even stand those awful little pests with their sticky hands and constant jabbering. They disgusted him, and he could barely believe that he had been one of them once upon a time.

So how had he agreed to teach them? He had entered Dumbledore's office with every intention to politely decline the offer and an hour later he had signed a contract without a single protest. If he hadn't been such an accomplished Auror, he would have thought that the Headmaster had used _Imperio _on him.

Why? Oh, why had he done it?

He knew why. There was just something about Dumbledore that made people want to please him. Jump into a lake with flesh eating sharks? Of course! Hug a Dementor? No problem! Teach a bunch of incompetent kids? Why not?!

Stupid old man with his stupid twinkling eyes.

"Harry" His friend had said –despite Harrison's protests that his name was Harrison and nothing else. "You could use some rest. Take a year off and teach the children how to defend themselves. I can think of no man better suited for this job than you"

And like an idiot he had agreed. As if in a dream he had signed the magical binding contract to teach the little suckers how to not die horribly. The only though he had to comfort himself with was that he would probably not last the year. None of the other professors had, and Harrison wasn't stupid enough to believe he would be an exception.

Still… A year with the Walking Disasters was a year too much.

There was one reason to why Harrison Stewart had never had children of his own, and that one reason became multiple reasons every time he saw one of the pests.

It had been bad enough to deal with those imbecile trainees at the Ministry. He had gotten stuck instructing them for the last two and a half years after that incident with the peacock. He had been turned into a scapegoat and stuffed in a corner of the Ministry to teach morons which end of the wand they needed to point at the suspect. The morons had all been terrified of him and the Auror Office had taken as a habit to refer to him as The Harrison the Hard or just Stone-face. None of them dared to say it to his face though, not since he practically bludgeoned that Black-kid to death.

Bloody bastard should have known better than to laugh.

The screeching of an owl interrupted his thoughts. Scowling Harrison turned his head toward the living room window and found a large, brown owl glaring at him from behind the glass. Its beady little black eyes were full of malice and Harrison directed an acid scowl towards the creature.

"Bugger off!" He told it. "And take your bloody letter back to your Mistress. I have no tolerance for hormonal wrecks today"

Harrison had no tolerance for a lot of things. Children, women, men… There were few things that didn't annoy him. Even the paper planes in the Ministry annoyed him, and if they got to close he set them on fire, important message or not.

This may have been the reason to why he was in his mid-forties and still unmarried.

Then again, Harrison preferred to live alone.

The owl gave up another glass-cracking screech and clawed the window with its talons. The sound gave the former-Auror-now-turned-teacher a headache. And the headache made him annoyed. And when Harrison was annoyed, things burned.

Literally.

Drawing his wand, Harrison marched over to the window, ripped it open and blasted a jet of fire towards the large, brown owl. By now the poor owl had gotten used to such manners and simply avoided the curse, soared towards the wizard and sat down on his arm. It made sure to dig its talons extra deep into the blond man's flesh though, because there's only so much an owl can take.

A string of curses escaped the blonde's mouth, his arm waving frantically as he tried to shake the stubborn owl off. A few moments later the wizard had to admit defeat and surrendered to the tender mercy of the brown owl.

"What do you want, you feather bag?" The owl chirped happily as the blonde glared. "Tell me now or I'll turn you into a pillow"

The owl lazily stretched out a leg. To the leg a sooty piece of paper was tied, looking faintly as if someone tried to fry it. Probably a message from Dumbledore to make sure he didn't change his mind (Too late for that) or some message from the Order.

Still glaring, Harrison grabbed the piece of paper titled Harry Stewart (It was Harrison damn it! Harrison!) and unrolled it. His eyebrows rose. The message was short, blunt and frankly totally barmy.

"The bloody woman has gone mad" He told the owl. "Either she's lost her mind or this is a trap. There's no way I'm going over there"

The brown creature gave him a_ look_.

Harrison gave up.

"Wait two minutes and I'll get my cloak"

**And yes, I know I'm late. Which I'm actually not guilty about at all. Right now I understand if the plot is a little slow (Hopefully it's going to catch up soon) and I've already sketched out a rough plan about how this story is going to go. **

**This of course, means that I'm totally making up things as I go along.**

**So what do you guys think about the newly introduced Harrison? Never mind that! What do you think about my Dark Lord? Or my Bella! She is one of my favorite characters in the books and dear God I love her in the movies. So much character in so few scenes that I think I actually cried in the sixth one when she started running on tables and kicking people's plates. **

**The next update will probably take a while. I'm doing my final exams for the year, even called Kurs Prov in Sweden, (Bastards changed the name _again_) which takes forever so I'm going to be pretty busy with doing my homework and trying to do my homework and looking at my homework with lazy eyes.**

**You are all welcome to review, you know. It's the little button that says "Review".**

**Hugs and kisses…**

** A.C**


	9. Part IX

**~*An Accident in Time*~**

**Written by: Cisselah**

_I've never been intellectual, but I have this look._

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part IX**

James had never really been the one for plans. Usually he just went with the flow and left the planning part to Selina or Freddy. It wasn't that he was unable to use that particular set of skills –because when he wanted James could be a marvelous planner, mind you- but it was the fact that James was more of a doing kind of person that stopped him from activating that particular part of his brain.

Besides, plans bored him. Especially plans were nothing blew up.

If James Sirius Potter II had been the planning kind of person, then maybe he wouldn't have been sent back in time and arrested for being a Death Eater. If he had been the planning kind of person then maybe he wouldn't have told Crouch –that slimy goat- that he was in fact from the future. If he had been the planning kind of person, then maybe he wouldn't have showed up at Remus Lupin's door so close to full moon and banged on it like it was his little brother stealing his broom.

But then again, James had never really been the one for plans.

So when a very irritated Remus Lupin opened the door, his face gaunt and pale and very sickly-looking, James realized that maybe it hadn't been a good idea to bother the werewolf.

But oh well, done was done.

"Moony" He said cheerfully as he went cross-eyed trying to keep track of the wand that was pressed against his nose. "Nice to meet you too"

And despite the growing foreboding in his intestines that told him that he was about to get hexed to Jupiter and back, it was nice to meet Teddy's father. Even though Teddy's father happened to be a grumpy werewolf with a cluster of scars currently shoving a wand up James's nose on said werewolf's front porch.

Remus Lupin was not what James had expected (People rarely were) and somewhere in the back of his mind he compared the glaring werewolf on the front porch to the image of a ragged, old man with thinning hair.

The first thing that surprised James Potter II was that Remus Lupin was young. Really young. The same age as him, actually. His face was pale and smooth with the silvery lines of already healed scars battling against the angry red scratches that had not yet healed. His hair was a sandy blond-brown color and hung limply in his eyes like he had just rolled out of bed. A few speckles of grey reminded James of the old man he had seen in the photos, but other than that he looked very young and very pissed, a trait that James had always assumed that Teddy had gotten from his mother rather than his father.

He was, all in all, a very young, very angry werewolf in dusty robes and if James had been the one for planning he would quickly have realized that it was going all to hell because Remus Lupin did not wear the expression that one wears when one meets his best friend. In fact, Remus Lupin wore the expression one might wear when one meets a mortal enemy in a grocery store.

James smile was slowly dying.

"Who the fuck are you! And how the fuck do you know that name?" Lupin growled, his wand pressing into James's nose _hard._ James swallowed a wince and tried not to look like he was about to reach for his stolen -_borrowed-_ wand, disarm the noisy werewolf and then tie him up in a chair as he snooped through the house. Lupin was either very good at reading minds or James was really bad at keeping his poker face in front of his god brother's dead teenage father, because he reached out one hand and snagged the stolen –_borrowed-_ wand from his half clenched hand .

Suddenly James was staring at the end of two wands.

"Bugger"

Under the careful scrutiny of the scowling werewolf, James was carefully led inside the small cottage –because it couldn't really be called a_ house_- and without any polite acquirements about how his day had been or what lovely weather they had, hoarded into the living room to where two vaguely familiar quests were drinking tea.

Guests... How wonderful...

It wasn't a very big living room, but it was so sparsely furnished that it looked bigger than it was. A fireplace was squished into a corner together with a bowl of Floo powder and in the middle of the room was a brown couch with a print of yellow flowers. Perched on the coffee table was a yellow teapot and cowering in the corner of the couch was a short, fat wizard. James distasted him immediately.

The redhead next to the cowering wizard lifted her yellow teacup from a green saucer and looked up at James.

This, James realized, must be his grandmother. She had flaming red hair that reached her shoulders in a waterfall of curls. Emerald green eyes –the same eyes as his father and brother- looked up at him over the brim of the yellow teacup, filled with curiosity and fascination and more than a little suspicion. Her Gryffindor-colored robes clung tightly to her body and showed that she was very, very pregnant. She was so big that James couldn't help thinking that she would burst at any was also very pretty, in the girl-next-doors kind of way, that made her look sweet and innocent and gentle.

In other words; James had no idea how they could possibly be related.

And then she opened her mouth.

"Ever heard of the concept of a haircut?" A sarcastic voice questioned him. Deciding that he could see the family resemblance (Who else could possible manage that sardonic, dry tone?) James grinned at her, hiding a wince as Lupin's wand stabbed into his back a little too hard. His grandmother put down her teacup and stood up.

"Ever heard of the concept of safe sex?" James shot back, still grinning wildly and totally ignoring that if she had he wouldn't exist at all.

"Ever heard of the concept of shut the hell up?" The werewolf growled, sounding so animalistic that James found himself wondering exactly when full moon was. The cowering wizard that sat next to his grandmother said nothing.

"Vaguely" James responded cheerfully. "But I think I nodded off in the middle of it" Judging by Lupin's renewed pressure against James's spine, the question had been rhetorical.

Bugger.

His pregnant grandmother's expression was cold when she raised her own wand, clearly not trusting James at all -nobody ever did- and with good reason too. James just had one of those faces that screamed mischief. Or, as the portrait of that greasy git in the Headmistress's office had snidely pointed out, he looked like he would stick a head inside a dragon's mouth just to see what happened. This had of course been followed by the usual insult regarding James's father and then his namesake. And to make sure James got the picture, there had been a lot of 'dunderheads' flying around.

James had responded with hexing the entire Slytherin table, including his baby brother.

This had started what the Hogwarts population referred to as _The Great Pranking War of 2018,_ which had later become known as _The First Great Pranking War of 2018_. It had become somewhat of a tradition to tell the first years of the infamous James Sirius Potter's _Sticky Syrup Setup _which had nearly overpopulated the hospital wing. By the time James reached his seventh year, half of the school avoided him and the other hanged on to his every word.

Ah, the wonders of being a legend.

Not that it did James much good now, being surrounded by two furious, powerful people he _knew_ could turn him into a jigsaw puzzle if they wanted to and what looked like a Hufflepuff wizard with weight problems. Why had he agreed to follow that girl home again? He should have known that something would go wrong...

"You have two minutes to explain what you want and why you look like a less handsome version of my husband" Lily Potter said coldly. "Because quite frankly, I have no patience with Death Eaters today"

James was insulted.

"Less handsome? _Less handsome?!_ I'll have you know, I was the one who inherited all the good genes in the family! My looks have been cherished by dozens of girls, all of them practically begging me to take them to Madam Puddifoot's or something equally stupid. I'm so handsome that they are _drooling _over my good looks_" _He said incredulously and made an exasperated gesture with his hands. "I'm the golden egg of the chickens!"

If James thought that the monologue would extract some sympathy, he was wrong. "One minute" Lily Potter said, looking colder then the arctic.

His grandmother really was a stone cold bitch.

Deciding that it really was best if he told the truth, James opened his mouth to deliver the explanation to the audience in the most direct, obnoxious way possible.

Then unexpectedly his brain kick started.

_What the hell are you doing? _An irritated voice that sounded ridiculously like Selina asked. _Do you want to live or what? If you tell them you're from the future they'll never believe you. They'll probably put you in St. Mungos for spell damage or give you to the Aurors. No, they'd defiantly give you to the Aurors. It's been a while now, so there's a big chance that Dumbledore has informed the Order there's a madman running around telling people he's James Potter's time travelling grandson. _

The irritating voice had a point. He had spent a few hours just drifting through Knockturn Alley wondering what to do until he had eavesdropped on a pair of dark witches and found out that Narcissa Malfoy was at her parents with her newborn son because her husband was keeping "that horrible blood traitor boy named Benjamin Fenwick" in their basement.

Now, James's memory was a tricky thing. Some things he remembered like he was reliving them, like which clothes Selina wore, how the light shone through her hair or how her laugh sounded like a thousand angels singing. Other things he knew but couldn't remember where he had learned them, like the Quidditch scores for the World Cup of 1986 or how _Ryder's Elemental Law of Poisonous Potions_ went. Those other things were sometimes a little bit muddy, because James could rarely recall where and when he had learned them. So when he heard that Fenwick was kept in the Malfoy's dungeon it took him a whole minute to remember why that statement bothered him.

Malfoy was a Death Eater. Benjy Fenwick was captured by Death Eaters. Benjy Fenwick was not supposed to be captured by Death Eaters. Benjy Fenwick was supposed to be blown to bits a few months after James's father was born. James had even seen him in a picture after the baby (he still couldn't think of it as his father) was born. That meant that he had to be alive and not captured by the time the baby was born. That in turn meant that Benjy couldn't die yet.

Death Eater captives rarely lived longer than a week.

This, James had decided, was bad. Really bad. I'm-going-to-hide-under-my-pillow bad.

Briefly he toyed with the idea that maybe he hadn't changed anything and that Benjy was supposed to be a captive in a moldy basement somewhere. But he couldn't risk it. If Benjy died before his time, James was going to be in some serious shit.

I-might-not-be-born shit.

So James decided that the only thing to do was to break out Benjy Fenwick. This meant that James needed help. Help often came in the form of family, even if said family didn't exactly know they were family yet. Besides, James was a Momma's boy, and his Momma had respected Remus Lupin very much, although so far James couldn't really see why.

"Thirty seconds" His grandmother said icily and James ransacked his mind for a good explanation. It was surprisingly hard to come up with something for a boy that had held the record of most detentions and still hadn't even been punished for _half _of the things he had done.

Bugger, bugger, bugger, bloody hell… What was he supposed to say? Hey, Lily, I'm your timetravelling grandson and I need your help breaking into Lucius Malfoy's manor to rescue Benjy Fenwick because he's not supposed to die for another few months.

"Ten seconds" Lily Potter said icily, her wand hovering over James's neck threatening.

James opened his mouth and let the words flow out of his mouth. "My name is Izak Latyer and I'm a friend of Benjy. I owe him and I figured I'd help him out now, because I heard someone say that he had been captured by Death Eaters. I know where he is -the Malfoy manor- but I can't get him myself because I need someone to cover me. I came here because I know that you're Benjy's friend and I'm not really popular in the Ministry right now. I look like this because I was born like this and the other stuff... Well, to be frank... That's none of your bloody business, so piss off"

The best thing with the explanation was that it was 100% true. Or at least 50% true. The first bit was lies, but the thing about how he heard someone say Benjy was captured and he wasn't on good terms with the ministry was true.

The worst thing with that explanation was that his stupid mouth had decided that Izak Latyer was going to be his new name. Izak Latyer was a little bit better than Merlin or Charlotte, but defiantly no James Potter. To make things worse, James had met the real Izak Latyer a few times before –it became kind of inevitable when Albus insisted on bringing his fork tongued friends over all the time- and James had quickly decided that Izak Latyer was in first hand a Slytherin and in second hand a human being and therefore deserved every slimy prank that he fell for.

It had been in the middle of dinner when he reached that conclusion and Albus had thrown a hissy fit for four days after the pudding incident.

The point was that James Potter despised Izak Latyer, just like he despised most of his baby brother's friends.

"Do you really expect us to believe that?" Lily Potter asked with a voice that told him she was about to call the Aurors.

No offense Grandma, James though, but I can't let you do that. I really want to live so that I can go home and see Selina again. And my family too, of course.

Now, James Potter was a loudly proclaimed arrogant Gryffindor. He was rash, brave and on occasions incredible stupid. He was red and gold and a lion in armor. It was a commonly known fact that James Potter was wholeheartedly Gryffindor and despised Slytherins -which included his Slytherin brother. What was a less known fact was that his Slytherin brother had rubbed off on him and James Potter now had no difficulties using the magnificent tool called blackmail.

Being from the future meant that James had a lot of blackmail material.

"Listen" He said frostily, assuming the same badboy personality that made girls swoon and boys punch him. "I don't think I made myself clear. I need your help breaking Fenwick out of the Malfoy manor" He gave his grandmother a cool smirk. "I think it would be in your best interest to help me"

"Why would we? We know nothing about you. You could be a Death Eater for all we know"

Time for the trump card. This was either going to make them his mortal enemies and helpful allies or just his mortal enemies and possibly his victorious killers (Which admittedly would be a unique way to go). James hoped for the former. "It would be a shame..." He tried to muffle the smirk, he really did, but he just couldn't help being smug about outsmarting people, no matter who said people were. "...if it came out that your friend was a werewolf"

And ding-ding-ding. We have a winner.

The wand pressing against James's neck abruptly disappeared. His grandmother's face was white and tight, her eyes both horrified and furious. Lupin's face was pale underneath the scars when he stumbled over to the couch and sat down next to the fat wizard, shaking lightly and looking like he was going to throw up. Apparently James's threat had struck a nerve.

"Don't bother wiping my mind, I have an insurance so that if you do, it will quickly be widely known" He hadn't, but no one would be stupid enough to walk into a werewolf's home and threaten to out him without it. James counted on them thinking he was the planning kind of man, even though he clearly wasn't.

"If you think you're going to get away with this-" Lily started to say.

"I suppose that being an unregistered animagus is illegal these days. Oh, how I do wonder what Azkaban is like this time of the year" The look on their faces definitely made it worth it. The fat wizard in the couch even started crying.

"I'll do anything you want!" He wailed. "I don't want to go to Azkaban!"

James wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"Pete! Pete, calm down. No one is going to Azkaban" Lily Potter said soothingly, despite that she looked like she was already there. "Take a deep breath and stop crying"

James frowned. The name Pete sounded vaguely familiar, like the forgotten name from a bedtime story, but that was ridiculous. The chubby wizard with watery blue eyes didn't exactly look like any of the heroes that his father always talked about. Before he could mull over it further, Lupin cleared his throat awkwardly.

"What do you want?" He asked miserably. James's frown deepened. They couldn't possibly be that dim, could they? He had told them the purpose with this visit more than once. They had to know! The expression on Lupin's face told him they didn't.

What no earth had his mother admired with this man?

"I told you, I want your help rescuing Benjy Fenwick from Death Eater captivity" James said, a little annoyed now. "And you, Remus Lupin, are going to give it to me, without involving anyone else" Or I'm going to ruin your lives, was the unspoken threat.

There was a silence as the room's occupants pondered over this dilemma, with the possible exception of Pete, whom seemed to be crying again. James already knew what they would chose. They couldn't risk any of the secrets being exposed. There were only to choices out of this. Either they got rid of James -properly- or they did as he wanted and saved Benjy.

There really wasn't a choice.

James could see it on his mother's face that she had decided. Her emerald eyes grew hard like diamonds and she straightened up in her seat, staring at him with an icy look that could turn the Sahara desert into a popsicle. Beside her sat Lupin, looking miserable and aged beyond his years. _Sorry Teddy, _James though. _But I've decided that my birth is worth the possible exception of yours. No hard feelings._

"We'll do as you say, but after this is done, we will owe you nothing" Emerald eyes burned into hazel eyes.

"Deal" Wait a second. "We?"

His grandmother gave him a regal look. "Yes, we... You didn't actually think I'd let you run off with my friend did you? Me and Pete are coming and that's it"

This seemed to be news to Pete and Lupin too. Lupin looked even worse than before -if that was even possible- and Pete had assumed a somewhat terrified facial expression, his watery eyes were wide with trepidation. He sat in the corner of the couch and even though he looked like he wanted to, he didn't protest. Remus Lupin on the other hand, was not so silent.

"_No_! Lily! You're pregnant! You can't go on a mission with a baby about to pop out at any given moment! It's fine, I'll be okay, I'll be fine, but you can't come with us. James would die if he knew I'd let you-" His frantic protests were interrupted by a rapidly angering Lily Potter.

"Let me? _Let me?! _I'll have you know, Remus Lupin, that I am perfectly able to make my own decisions... Being pregnant hasn't changed that. I'm not some fragile doll that you have to protect, I'm a grown woman and I am fully capable of handling myself. I don't need you permission to do something and I certainly don't need James's. Besides, the baby isn't due for another week, so I'm better of then you" Actually, the baby wasn't due until tomorrow, but James was certainly not planning on telling her _that_. For the moment he seemed to have trouble speaking at all, so all he could do was watch as the argument unfolded.

"Fuck it, Lily. You're not thinking straight. You can't come. Think about the baby. Think about James. What would James do if-" If James hadn't been so flabbergasted, he would have agreed. What would James do if James's father suddenly died because he dragged his pregnant grandmother into a Death Eater base? Was that even possible? If it was, would that mean that James did exist so that he couldn't go back in time and kill his dad and the whole thing was a paradox or did it mean that the future was erased and rebooted? James didn't fancy figuring that out.

"I was an Auror before I was pregnant. If James could handle that, then he can handle this. I'm going and that's final" She gave the boys a look that told them she was a dragon they were tickling. For a moment James thought he was seeing his mother. Merlin, he though, we Potters just have to marry the stubborn ones. "If it makes you feel any better" Lily added. "I'll owl Harry to join us. He'll appreciate a good fight"

What did she just say?

"Harry?" James choked out, his thoughts immediately going to his kick-ass father. He couldn't be here could he? Oh Merlin… if he was, James was in so much trouble. I-wish-I-was-never-born trouble, which became kind of complicated because there was a chance that the wish would be granted.

Oh shit, his dad was going to fail him in Auror training, he just knew it. Getting sent back in time was going to get him sacked. His dad was going to kick his ass so badly that he was going to need to eat through a straw for the rest of eternity and then Selina would never hook up with him.

_What makes you think she wants to do otherwise? _A snarky voice in his head asked.

Shut up, James replied.

The werewolf and the witch turned towards him and interrupted his inner argument. Somewhere during the argument Lupin had stood up and now when it was obvious that he was losing, he sank down on the couch again, burying his face in his hands.

"Yes" Lily confirmed with a grin. "We call him Harry, but his real name was Harrison Stewart. He was my instructor at the Auror division. Now if you excuse me, I'll have to get my owl to send a letter to him explaining the situation. We'll leave tonight and use the darkness as cover"

And with those inspiring words, Lily Potter marched over to the fireplace, grabbed a fistful of Floo powder and disappeared in a wall of green fire, leaving the male's staring at an empty fireplace.

Oh dear God. He had just recruited his grandmother and therefore his unborn father to rescue a dead man from another dead man. He was going to become known as the one who destroyed the world where the Light won, he just knew it.

James turned towards his new partners. "Can I have my wand back?"

A flying object hit him in the face.

_Well, that went better than expected._

**This has been surprisingly difficult to write. I've rewritten this three times and done a lot of editing and I'm still not entirely happy with some parts of it.**** I write this mainly just because it's fun, so if you see any errors, please inform me. And as **I've said before, I don't know when the next chapter is posted, but hopefully it will be soon (I just can't seem to stop writing). 

**By the way, did you see what I did? The "clue" I put in there, so to speak? Hah, it's hilarious…!**

**I would appreciate some reviews, but we all know by now that it's pointless, so I'll just thank the ones that have.**

**With love**

**A.C**


	10. Part X

**~*An Accident in Time*~**

**Written by: Cisselah**

_I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox._

**_A Woody Allen Quote_**

**Part X**

Albus was five the first time he saw Momma Dragon in action. It was a warm summer day and his mom had taken him and James shopping in Diagon Alley. After an hour in Madame Malkins James had decided that he would take his little brother away from the horrible lady with the pins and go to their Uncle George to try out some new pranking products. With the same arrogant manner that he had succeded in keeping over a decade later, James grabbed his little brother's hand and waltzed out the door without telling their mother where they were going.

And naturally, being James, he got them lost.

Five years old in a crowded alley without his mommy, Albus was understandably scared shitless. To make things even worse, James somehow walked them straight into Knockturn Alley where the stench of Black Magic was always present.

By the time his brother finally admitted they were lost, Albus was softly crying, crouched behind his brothers back and holding his shirt with both hands. They attracted the attention of the inhabitants of Knockturn Alley and suddenly there was a pale man in front of them, looking at them hungrily as he grabbed James's arm and dragged him kicking and screaming into the shadows.

Albus could still vividly remember how James had swore and trashed, shouting words at the man that their Grandma would have washed his mouth with soap if she had heard. Crying louder than before, Albus had tried to pull James away from the scary man with the sickly pale skin and only succeeded in falling and scraping his knees. The pale man had then grabbed his arm really hard and dragged him along together with James into the corner of the road where no one was watching.

When he finally let go of Albus's arm, Albus had cowered in front of him in fear as he clung to his newly released brother. The man had looked at them with hungry eyes and crouched like a lion in front of a deer. Every nerve of Albus's body had been tingling with icy fear and his heart had been beating rapidly inside his chest. The man had said something -he couldn't really remember what- but it had been along the lines of "just in time for dinner" and then he had opened his mouth and revealed two gleaming fangs.

The man with the sickly skin was vampire. A hungry vampire...

James had shouted something foolishly brave that had made Albus cry even harder because even though he was only five, Albus had heard the stories about vampires and he knew... He knew that the monster in front of him was going to eat him and his brother.

The vampire had flexed its muscles like a cat and _pounced._

And then, to Albus relief and shock, it had frozen midjump and been slammed into the ground by an invisible force so strong that it cracked the cobblestones.

From the shadows a figure had emerged. It had been a beautiful woman with flaming red hair and hard, brown eyes that burned with a fire unlike everything Albus had ever seen before. She had been huge from Albus's vantage point, so tall that she towered over everybody else. Her whole being was surrounded by a golden kind of aura and she had been delicately holding her wand out in front of her, rage burning through every cell of her body. At first Albus had mistaken her for an avenging angel, but as she swung her wand and slammed the newly risen vampire down onto the ground again he realized that it was his mommy that was there to rescue him.

Although he could remember mommy ever being that scary before.

In his memories she had been the most comforting and terrifying sight ever as she had slammed the vampire against the ground again and again and again, speaking to it in a deadly calm voice with words that he couldn't remember but still heard when he awoke in cold sweat at night. She had made it clear to the vampire what would happen if he touched one of her babies again, and when she was distracted by her children's hugs and sobbing greetings he had slunk of into the shadows with a battered body and a terrified face.

Since then, Albus had been 50% respectful and 50% fearful of the Momma Dragon Mood. It was a force to be reckoned with, because it took a lot to make a vampire shake in its booths.

When Ginny Potter was in Momma Dragon Mood, the world better step out of the way, because Albus's mother was perfectly capable of frying it's ass.

So when Ginny Potter tore off towards apartment 6G on Ale Street, Albus figured it was best to follow her from a considerable distance and just take care of the damage later on.

With record speed Ginny got to the apartment building (Albus didn't really want to know how the hell she knew where it was) and spelled open the locked gateway to let them in. Maddy, Freddy and Albus trudged after her carefully, sneaking up the stairs like three invisible shadows after a terrifying hurricane.

Albus reached the third floor about half a second after his mother and had barely a second to spare before something soft and big collided with him. He caught a glimpse of orange hair and a brown coffee mug before the sweet liquid splashed all over his face and chest. Some of it got in his mouth, making him gag at the taste of more caramel than coffee. He tumbled backwards into Freddy who bumped into Maddy and suddenly all three of them were falling backwards, crashing down to land in a tangled heap of legs and arms.

Groaning from the top of the pile, Albus discovered that he had just acquired at least three new bruises, a terrible headache and possibly a broken arm.

"Al, get your fat ass of me" Maddy groaned from underneath him, jerkily moving her limbs in a way that sent a needle of pain into one of Albus's sore spots.

"I'm working on it" Albus moaned, trying to untangle himself from someone's shirt only to discover that his may-or-may-not-be-broken-arm was squeezed in between two hard bodies. He tried to pull it out put was stopped by Maddy's squealing and squirming.

"Stop touching my ass, Al!" She snapped, putting more weight onto Albus's arm and making him wince in pain.

"I'm not touching your ass, Mads... Oh, for Merlin's sake, stop moving around! It bloody hurt!" He growled, trying to find an angle that would put that much pressure onto his banged up arm. He didn't succeed and moaned again as Maddy more pressure on the arm.

"I can't! Your hand in almost inside my pants! You're practically groping me!"

"Don't flatter yourself. The only one who'd ever want to grop you is Freddy, so why don't you ask him if it's his hands that making a Indiana Jones towards your butt"

"Indiana Jones? Seriously? I think Dora the Explorer is more appropriate right now"

A new voice from the bottom of their pile interrupted them. "Would you shut up?!" Freddy's muffled voice came. "It's my hand, okay? Let's have this discussion later, because I'm suffocating against your boobs right now"

Albus had to suppress the urge to say "I told you so".

A minute of grunting and groaning later, Albus was yanked up to his feet by a pair of soft hands that smelled faintly of rose petals. He blinked dizzily as he tried to exorcise the black spots in his vision and see his savior as a soft, lovely voice despairingly told him; "Oh Morgana, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you standing there and all of a sudden you were just _there_! It's totally my fault!"

His vision cleared and before him stood the most beautiful girl of all time. Albus forgot the throbbing pain in his arm. The world paled in her comparison and he felt his heart skip a beat as he took in her appearance. She was a little older than him, James's age perhaps, but she was definitely the most unique girl he had ever seen. Her hair was a wonderful mixture of orange and green that blended in perfectly and made her look both spunky and cool. Her skin was flawless and pale white and her eyebrows delicately shaped and so sharp that he wondered if he would cut himself if he touched them. Her eyes were mismatched, one chocolate brown and the other icy blue and they were so soft and lovely and kind that Albus found himself melting at the sight of them.

She was absolutely perfect, and Albus knew that this was the girl for him.

It was love at first sight.

"No problem" He breathed out, his lips twitching up in a fool's smile. "I'm Albus. I mean, my name is Albus... Just Albus... Like the headmaster... In case you're wondering..."

She smiled back shyly. "I'm Carry" She said.

Carry. Albus thought as his smiled widened. He tasted the name in his thoughts. Carry, Carry, Carry, Carry. I'll _carry_ you in my heart forever.

"Great" Freddy's dry voice interrupted them from behind. "James is gone and all you care about is getting laid. I am so out of here"

Albus barely noticed as his friends climbed the stairs a second time, meeting an exasperated but worried Ginny in the middle and together moving up towards the third floor. He did, however, notice Maddy's enthusiastic shout of "Use a condom, Snake boy". He was also pretty sure the whole building noticed it, but Maddy seemed blissfully unaware and all his traitorous mother did was snort.

Merlin's pants, how he missed his Slytherin friends. They would have known exactly what to do to help Albus not embarrass himself in front of the flawless angel that was smiling at him.

James had all hated them of course, and his follow snakes had avoided his house at all costs, especially after the _Floating Pumpkin Punch_, which had quite literally been a punch in the face for many of Albus roommates. The only ones brave enough to defy his brother's ridiculously well executed pranks had been Izak Latyer, Scorpius Malfoy and on some more brave occasions when there was much better targets in sight, Fletcher Nott.

Unfortunately they were all unavailable and Albus had to team up with James's Gryffindor buddies who rushed headfirst into danger and came back as a decapitated ghost.

If only Izak hadn't been so sensitive about his mother than maybe he wouldn't had gotten in a brawl with that wizard and said wizard wouldn't have decided he wanted a crocodile skin handbag for a present.

If only Fletcher hadn't been so keen on getting into his grandfather's will and therefore unceremoniously agreed to taking a month long trip to Paris to live in his Grandfathers fancy apartment with a view over the canal.

If only Scorpius hadn't been such a good bait.

Bloody Izak and his inability to let things go.

Bloody Fletcher and his bloody sneakiness.

Bloody Scorpius and his inability to stop chasing girls in skirts.

And bloody James and his inability to stop chasing _crazy_ people in skirts.

One of those days, one of his friends was going to be the death of him.

"What are you doing out here then... Visiting a boyfriend?" Albus inquired and the angel in front of him -Carry- giggled.

Albus panicked.

"Not that I care of course. Just wondering. What your doing. Here. In this building. It's a nice afternoon, you know? Although I think it will rain later. Perhaps you should stay indoors, but not with your boyfriend. Oh... I didn't mean... I didn't... I mean, if you have a boyfriend... That's fine. Perfectly fine. Wonderful even. A girl should have someone she cares about. It's nice. Very nice..." He gave her a shaky smile. "So do you have a boyfriend?"

"No boyfriend" She giggled behind a curtain of green-orange hair. "I'm running an errand for my brother. Trying to tie up some loose ends, you know. My friend lives in this building and my brother sent me to pick up something from her, but she isn't answering the door so I figured I'd come back later..."

"What an ass" Albus said with crooked grin, trying not to be all too noticeable as he wiped his sweaty hands against his jeans. "If I had the chance of spending time with an angel like you I'd take every minute of it. Even the bad ones... Especially the bad ones. Not that any minute would be a bad one. Not with you..."

The angel in front of him giggled and her eyes glittered with happiness.

"Perhaps you'd like a coffee some day?" She asked with a wide smile that sent butterflies running amok in Albus's midriff.

"Yes! _Yes!_" He blinked owlishly. "I'm mean, eh, sure, sounds like fun..."

Carry the angel giggled some more.

-w-

Freddy was having the time of his life.

Sure, his best friend was missing and possibly in mortal peril (although Grandma's old clock insisted that he was 'lost'), he had just fallen down a set of stairs and was probably in need of some medical care (Not that it was news, his mom had always told his father that they should have brought him to a healer when Freddy was five and set the neighbor's cat on fire) and Maddy was pissed at his because of the groping-thing (Honestly, she was the one that had practically pushed her boobs up his face, if anyone was going to scream sexual assault then it was Freddy!) but still...

Breaking and entering had always had a way of making him happy.

His aunt had wanted to do the offensive approach (kick the door in and go in wands blazing) but Freddy had to her chagrin convinced her to let him pick the lock the muggle way, which had always been Freddy's favorite way of breaking into places where he shouldn't be.

Although, that one time with the niffler had definitely been a top ten.

Freddy had always had a knack for breaking into -and out of- difficult places, so the rusty lock of the muggle apartment wasn't that much of a challenge. It took him a total of fourteen and a half seconds to unlock the door and another half second to watch his redheaded aunt charge in with her wand in her hand.

Freddy figured it was best to wait outside.

Ten seconds later there had still not been any sounds of a fight, so Freddy figured it was okay to go inside. A quick look told him that Albus was still chatting up that freaky-haired girl on the floor bellow and Maddy was biting her lip as she contemplated the value of her life.

"You coming or what?" He asked her and grinned in the daredevil, arrogant way he knew got on her last nerves. Muddy brown eyes glared at him in return.

"Suck my metaphoric male reproductive organ"

"I'll think I'll pass, baby, but thanks anyway"

They entered the apartment carefully, but Freddy wasn't sure if it was the risk of diseases or a brutal death that made them hesitate in the doorway. Probably the former, seeing as the place didn't look like it had been cleaned in ages. Dust lay in a thick blanket over every surface, clothes were thrown casually over the floor and there were questionable spots on the carpet and walls that tickled Freddy's gag reflex.

The kitchen was in an even worse state. Not only had Galen McTrawe neglected washing the dishes for what seemed like a month, but there were stains of old spaghetti sauce on the walls and in the sink there was a shoe pressed in-between a plate of old Thai food and a half full bowl of milk and cornflakes. The floor had strange black-red spots smeared out like someone had made a halfhearted attempted to clean it all up. And among all the mess there were signs of a makeshift potion laboratory.

"I feel like I'm standing in doctor Frankenstein's secret lab" Freddy remarked as he lifted a pale pink bottle of some weird liquid from the kitchen table. "What do you think this is?"

"I don't know" Maddy answered as she frowned. She gestured towards two empty glasses -the only clean ones in the apartment. "But it has to be drinkable, 'cause it looks like she's gonna to drink it"

Freddy's lips twitched. Sometimes he forgot how cute Maddy was when she was trying to figure something out, like a kitten with a ball of yarn. Her choppy, brown hair framed her frowning face as she chewed her bottom lip anxiously. He had always liked her best when she was like this, concentrating on something so hard that she forgot the rest of the world even existed.

"There's no one here" A voice from behind them said irritably. Freddy didn't need to turn around to know who it was.

"She probably saw you storming down the street like an angry bull on steroids and ran the other way, Aunt Gin" His Aunt made a tiny growling sound in the back of her throat.

"She better" Ginny Potter said heatedly. "That bitch had an altar of my husband in her closet. _My husband! _She'd better be on the other side of the world by now..." She wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something bad. "I'm going in the bedroom again. I'm sure there's something interesting among all that shit. Check the kitchen" She spun around and vanished into the bedroom again, slamming the bedroom door closed with a bang.

They looked at the closed door for a long time.

Freddy's Aunt Ginny were always so charming.

Turning to Maddy, Freddy's lips twitched into a lopsided smirk.

"I dare you" He said, his pale fingers twirled the pale pink bottle as dark eyes watched her mischievously. Maddy spun around with narrowed eyes.

"Not now!" Maddy hissed, her eyes cracking with lightning as she glared at him.

It had always been their game, their own secret entertainment, to dare each other to do silly things. Like; I dare you to kiss that girl in the corner, or, I dare you to tell professor Longbottom you admire his ass greatly. The rules were simple. One of them dared the other to do it. The other one did it and then dared the first one back. It was like an eternal game of Ping-Pong where the ball was a great deal of embarrassing situations.

And the best and worst thing was that neither of their prides ever allowed them to lose.

"You forfeit?" Freddy mocked her as he shook a lock of messy red hair from his eyes. He gave her a wild grin as he twirled the bottle faster between his long fingers.

"Name it" Came the stubborn answer.

Freddy almost smiled. Maddy never backed down from one of his challenges, just like he never backed down from one of hers. And unlucky for her, Freddy was still mad for the gothic chick with the pink handcuffs.

They say that revenge was a dish best served cold, but Freddy had never really been the waiting kind of guy.

"Drink this" He said and held up the pale pink bottle.

The look on her face was priceless.

"The whole thing? You seriously want me to drink a whole bottle of pink unidentified potion? Are you out of your fucking mind?!"

"Don't be an idiot! It's only half a bottle... Besides, no respectable potions master would make a pink poison..." He paused. The look on Maddy's face told him that his words didn't reassure her. "Why don't we make a deal? Drink one glass of it and I'll drink one with you"

She chewed her bottom lip as she contemplated this. On one hand she could embarrass herself remarkably and possibly get herself hurt or killed. On the other hand, she'd take Freddy down with her.

"Deal" She gave him a cold glare. "But we'll drink it together, at the same time"

"Deal" Freddy grinned at her as he uncorked the bottle and measured up a generous amount of pale pink potion in the two empty glasses. "We'll take it one three"

He locked eyes with Maddy and she nodded determinedly. They both lifted up their glasses and still holding her eyes with his, Freddy brought it towards his mouth, pressing the surprisingly warm glass towards his lips and breathing in the sweet syrupy smell of it. It did smell faintly familiar, but he couldn't put a finger on what it was. "One" Maybe it was some happy-thoughts potion or a pranking product? "Two" No, he would have recognized a prank a mile away. This was something else. If he only could remember exactly what it was... "Three"

It tasted strongly of melted caramel and softly of roses as it filled it mouth and slipped down his throat. It was like heaven on a bottle and Freddy could have drunken it forever if he could. Some soft voice of his brain was alarmed by the heavenly taste of it, but the majority of his mind could only think about the sweet flavor that exploded on his tongue. All too soon it was over and the world returned to him with a snap. Sometime during the last minute he had closed his eyes and his fingers were squeezing the glass so hard that he was surprised it hadn't cracked.

"_Oh Morgana" _Maddys breathless voice whispered just as Freddy opened his eyes again. "_It's a love potion_"

Shit.

The second their eyes touched after ingesting the potion the world flared up in a myriad of colors, drowning Freddy in a desire to touch, to_ feel_, so strong that he stopped breathing for a moment. Then the moment passed and he was all over her, tongues dancing and hands wandering. The addicting flavor of roses and caramel and Maddy exploded in his mouth and he clenched her tighter against his chest, trying to melt them together by the searing passion that flamed inside of them.

It felt like he was burning and Freddy had never felt anything like it before, not even in third year when Veronica Renter sneaked a love potion into his pumpkin juice at breakfast. Back then he had thought he had felt passion, but compared to this...? Oh dear God, there was nothing compared to this. The magic that was coursing through his blood and heightening his senses... The passion that was burning him up inside out... Her fingers on his naked skin, branding him with invisible burn marks...

There was nothing like this...

"Freddy" Maddy moaned as she twined her fingers into his messy hair, wrapping her legs around his waist and hugging him more tightly then he thought was possible. Suddenly he was pressing her up against the pantry door and shaking it angrily as he shoved his hungry hands underneath the back of her shirt, leaving a trail of fire up her spine as he touched her.

How long hadn't he fantasized about this? How long hadn't he secretly hoped for this? Imagined kissing her instead of insulting her? Making love to her instead of making bets?

He felt like he was burning. He was too hot... So damn hot... He had to get his clothes off. Now. Before he turned into ashes.

"I can feel you" She moaned against his mouth as he struggled with his shirt. "Can you feel me?"

He could. It was possibly the worst part of this torture. Somehow - and Merlin only knows how - he could feel her emotions coiling under her skin, feel her lust and love and her need. Maybe it was the potion or the incredible high he was on, but he couldn't stop feeling her and he couldn't stand it, having both their feelings inside of him. Wanting it so damn much and oh Merlin, he was going to burn up. He was going to combust if he couldn't have her. Now. Here. Right this instant.

He attacked her mouth again, mixing their scents and fusing their bodies together. He wanted to devour her, to make her his, to make them one. Every brief touch was a trail of burning coal on his body, every breath fanning his skin was making him tingle and bloom and be reborn. There was only her. Maddy... Maddy... His Maddy...

Magic permeated the room, making the hairs of his neck and arms stand up, making his stomach flip and his heart knot in foreboding. Something was going to happen if he continued, he knew, but he couldn't stop. He was incapable of untangling himself from the soft, flushed skin and the muddy eyes and choppy brown hair that ensnared him.

He was like a drug addict that had finally found his favorite drug after months of withdrawal.

"Freddy" She moaned against his neck, her words a prayer and a demand at the same time. Stop, Continue. Continue, Stop.

He could feel fear blossom inside of her, feel her worry over the magic, over the control they both had lost. He could sense her thoughts too... Her wayward thoughts that split in two directions, one circling around him and the other worrying, wondering what the fuck was going on, why she was doing this, why she couldn't stop. Or maybe it was he who couldn't stop... He didn't know anymore... He didn't know anything but _her_...

We really shouldn't have drunken a whole glass each, Freddy though dizzily as he placed burning kisses along the length of her neck. We really shouldn't.

"I love you" He whispered, the magic in his vein coaxing the words out like . "I fucking love you"

Somewhere along the lines their shirts had disappeared.

"Freddy" She moaned, reaching for the zipper of his jeans. "Freddy"

"I goddamn love you" Freddy moaned, and this time he didn't know if it was him or the potion talking.

This was it. This was the moment they were going to become one forever. Him and Maddy. Maddy and him. They were going to have the most wonderful time of their life. He was going to make sure of it, because he loved her. He leaned back, taking all of her off the pantry door and holding her against him as he reached down to help her hands with the zipper and...

...Then the dead body fell out of the pantry.

_Oh shit._

_This was kind of a turnoff._

**Sorry for the wait. This chapter took an eternity to finish. I just couldn't get it quite right. So what do you think about the story so far? James is caught in 1980 and had blackmailed his grandmother, a werewolf and a squeaky, fat wizard into rescuing Benjy Fenwick from Lord Voldemort with him. Albus has found a nice girl. Freddy and Maddy has drunk a love potion and are going hot and heavy in the kitchen of the psycho chick who sent James back in time with Ginny Potter in the other room and there is currently a dead body in the pantry (I bet you can guess who that is!).**

**The plot, ladies and gentlemen, is thickening. **

**I have big plans for this little story, my friends, big plans indeed... Mohahahahhahahaha... *Evil laughter***

**And I am also sorry to say that I may have some problem updating, 'cause I got a job (Yay!) and I'm working all day long for a long, long time... But I promise you this; I'm not dead and I'm not abandoning this story, I'm just a lazy bastard with a very soft bed...**

**You'd make my day if you'd comment. :D**

**Love always / A.C**


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